


Nemesis

by omnomanon



Series: Nemesis [1]
Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Gen, Nemesis - Freeform, omnomanon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-25
Updated: 2013-05-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 11:33:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 187,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/735183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omnomanon/pseuds/omnomanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marian Hawke, Champion and mage, encounters an old friend for the first time since the Gallows. After a fierce and brief encounter, they begin a wild trek through Thedas, seeking both a greater enemy as well as their own redemption in each others' eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One Cold Night

Nemesis  
Chapter 1- One Cold Night

_“It seems we’re both delightfully difficult to kill.”_  
 _Marian Hawke_

Hawke could not feel her fingers.

She stood in the cold thicket, her toes numbed, her knees quaking. The field spanning between the wood and the cabin seemed both vast and foreboding. There was no cover, no underbrush to hide in or buildings to dart behind- just a vast, seemingly endless expanse of white snow. Her deep red robes would act as a flare for any observers the moment she stepped into the clearing regardless of the oppressive darkness that enshrouded her. Even though the crimson cloth acted as a beacon in the snow, it offered her the best protection and the most warmth in this frigid weather. For hours, she’d held this position, looking for movement or betrayal- frantically searching for any excuse to steal back into the woods and abandon this ridiculous quest.

She was alone, a lone scarlet-cloaked messenger cowering on the edge of the dead night. She’d already convinced many Templars to join the rebellion. It always took a healthy amount of explanation but many were willing to join her once she made her case. But this wasn’t an ordinary Templar, and the consequences would be dire should she fail to convert to joining the cause. These times were too desperate and she had to act before the world fell further apart at the seams.

The cabin was isolated with no other houses in visible proximity. The path leading to the stables had only one four-footed trail, a horse, leading to two retreating feet making their way to the front entrance of the building. There was only one horse in the stable. Hawke no longer traveled with one, despite the much-needed speed. Steeds needed food, stables and tack and Hawke had none of these things; she would not run an animal to death to further her cause. She was not Anders.

Anders… the thought of him brought a small seizure in her heart. She swallowed hard and shoved it down. Now was not the time- if there could ever even be a time…

She evened out her breathing to fight back the sorrow, her numb fingers rubbing the worn corner of the letter than had drawn her from hiding to this small cabin. A missive from a Starkhaven Templar Captain had bid her here. He wanted to discuss options for clemency between the mages and the Templars, some way to stop the senseless fighting and killing on both sides. The rebellion already had several Templars within it, men and women who wanted to protect mages. But never once had one of the Templar superiors made any effort to talk. It was the first inkling of the compromise Anders insisted couldn’t be. She couldn’t let the opportunity to stop the bloodshed slip through her fingers…

… or the opportunity to speak with someone who might explain her actions to Sebastian.

Two mages, Amaya and Deidrich, had succumbed to demons last week and she’d had to execute them… and they’d done it in the presence of a Templar she’d been trying to recruit, which had resulted in the man being drugged and left in the woods near a small village where he would certainly be found and returned to his Order- an utter waste of their limited time and resources. Hawke couldn’t kill him, though, even knowing that he’d return to his brethren with stories of blood mages and abominations. That wasn’t what her side of the revolution was about.

Then she’d had to listen to the wails of the other apostates in the camp- that it was hopeless, that they couldn’t win, that they would have stayed in the Circle if the Rite of Annulment hadn’t been broadcast throughout the Circles of Thedas. She wished above all else that they could have stayed but to even attempt to return to any Circle was a death sentence. The Grand Divine in Orlais had demanded a culling and approaching a Templar, even for amnesty, was pure suicide. It was not the lot the mages had chosen, it was the fate assigned to them by a villainous third party- one with no affiliation or love for their objectification or protection or victimization…

Damned Anders. He hadn’t just killed the Grand Cleric and everyone in the Chantry. He’d murdered them all.

But still, Hawke crept along the edge of the wood, sticking behind trees and into the shadows and watched for any sign of foul play. It would be so easy, she thought, to call that malicious shadow an ambush and turn tail to run… but it wasn’t a trap- it was a haystack- and that sort of paranoia would help no one. She’d made her peace with the inanimate object and dared further forward. Everyone knew the risks. If she could not return, someone would take her place and the rebellion would continue. It was the sick, sad work of war. It was her task as the leader of her mages. She relished in it far more than she did in her other leadership tasks- planning, burial, reprimands- because rather than supervising her herd, she was actively fighting for a chance at peace. And even if she were struck down, she knew she’d be a martyr for the cause… and that her cause had been to stop the senseless fighting.

Her mages desperately needed a Circle, she knew that when she took their side at the Gallows. Most of them struggled horribly without anyone or any sort of boundary to hold them accountable for their actions beyond the Fade. The finest Circles in the best of places were nothing but a weight around the mages’ necks as they had been, a heavy burden but somewhat bearable. That did not speak for Circles like the one in Kirkwall where rape, threats of Tranquility and torture were condoned as tests for the inherently wicked. But when Anders’ gauntlet had been thrown her mages could no longer live in the Circle as it was- not for their own dissatisfaction with the Chantry’s system but for their immediate ejection from it. They needed a new Circle- one that worked. The Templars that had seen fit to join them agreed readily, the others were unceremoniously dumped close to their camps, left behind as another weapon in the massive machine her enemies built to destroy her.

Anders would have scoffed at the idea of peace. Perhaps that was the primary reason why she decided to meet with the Knight-Captain tonight. She found herself doing lots of things to spite Anders. The former Grey Warden had been a great friend to her until the end, when he forfeited the lives of strangers as surely as he placed the crown of the rebellion upon her forehead. That tiara was now a cowl she wore as she stole into the night, shrouding her from the nourishing daylight as she trekked from camp to camp alone, uniting small bands of mages and Templars together so they could better survive in this unprecedented desolate winter. It would change soon; they’d have to join the small magical villages as a full force if the fighting continued the way it had been.

She’d been waiting at the edge of the cold woods for hours, observing the small farmhouse where they were to meet. A small chimney spouted out happy puffs of smoke, beckoning her to the warmth inside. She shivered against the invitation, stubbornly waiting for the even the slightest sign of betrayal. The Captain’s note had promised that they would meet alone but, well, it wouldn’t have been the first time a Templar lied to a mage. Fingers numb, she clutched her staff closer and sat in silence until the sun fell and the moon rose as the snow lay silent and uninterrupted on the ground.

 _Now_.

Still ill at ease, she listened to the command her instinct delivered and rose- after all, instinct had gotten her this far. She heard a rustle behind her and looked back briefly, relieved to see only a deer that had apparently missed her presence for all her stillness and fled to safety. If only she had the luxury of such simplemindedness. Bowing her head, she darted through the moonlight, hoping the darkness would provide adequate cover of her cloak over the white as she sprinted to the cabin.

The darker side of the cabin remained her target, the dimmer shadows giving her an ounce of cover, especially whilst veiled in crimson. When she reached it, breath heaving and legs quaking, she breathed a long, heavy sigh of relief, letting the frigid air cool and sting her lungs. While her footprints would lead any hunter straight to her, none seemed to give chase to her at the moment. A full hour passed before she dared to move again. She passed the time watching her shallow breath freeze and fall to the bitter cold earth and scrutinizing the dim silhouettes- all the while reciting meaningless rhymes silently. The muscles of her thighs were screaming in pain as she held her crouched position. She recited more poetry, her multiplication tables, songs her father had sung to her… anything to pass the time as minute by agonizing minute passed her by.

_They say that a girl of Orlais_  
 _Will harry her wardrobe for play_  
 _But the girls of Ferelden_  
 _Let men forge ‘em and weld ‘em_  
 _And welcome their leering as pay._

Deciding finally that an ambush would not find her in the thick snow, she took a deep breath and inched along the front edge of the cabin. She approached the entrance, wincing as each fall of her boots sounded out a harsh crunch against the silent night as the frozen water shifted and compressed. The door opened with a ceremonial creak and Hawke was nearly knocked backward by the sudden blast of warmth that escaped the cabin. She’d entered some sort of den area; the building was deceptively larger inside than it had appeared.

The great room was nearly devoid of furniture. There was a small table and two comfortable looking chairs. A swinging door that probably led to a kitchen rested next to another that based on the exterior layout was likely a closet. A hallway spanned off to her right past the fireplace, she deduced that bedrooms were constructed down there as the house seemed too small to hold offices or a basement. There were three large bay windows two facing north and one facing south; the curtains were drawn over them.

She saw a Templar broadsword resting against the wood wall and her heart gave a familiar ache as she recalled her former companion. Fenris. She understood why he’d refused to stand with the mages… but to fight against her after everything they’d been through? Her head drooped against the weight of the heavy blade on her mind; why did it have to end that way? Why couldn’t he just run? Too many good men lay dead and her throat still quaked closed whenever she thought of his body laying amongst all the others at her feet.

_Maker, give me a love who is good_  
 _A lover who wants what I should_  
 _Give me love true and pure_  
 _From a woman demure_  
 _And Maker if you have mercy you’ll throw that bitch I married under a carriage._

Fereldens… say what you will- they understood the importance of rhyme schemes. Born poets, they were, because her countrymen understood that rules were meant to be broken.

It was when she refused to kill Anders, she thought, that Fenris had decided to turn on her along with Sebastian. She cursed Sebastian for not taking Fenris with him, for not cudgeling the stupid elf over the head and dragging him away. After the bloody battle in the Gallows, they’d escaped the city of chains in a flurry of panic. Once they’d finally gotten far enough away, she’d beckoned Anders out of camp. He’d followed her, looking joyous as well as empty and tired.

“I can’t believe you let me live,” he’d said, hazel eyes sparkling partly in madness and partly relief. “We’ll fight this war together. We’ll free our people from this tyranny, Hawke, you’ll see.”

Sometimes she wondered in passing what would have happened if she had just followed him- if she had let Anders forge the path and merely walked along it beside him. If she had allowed him be a savior or a martyr- permitted him to fight with her or simply struck him down in front of the scorched Chantry… what would have happened then? Would she be an apostate princess sitting upon Anders’ throne, worshipped by a man whose very life had come to disgust her, or would she be here again- mourning over cold steel and changing the world, mothering a brood of mages and barely managing to keep ahead of her pursuers while Anders’ brought the axe of his rage down across Thedas… she did not know. This isolation, the desolate solitude that had become the signet of her existence threatened to suffocate her and she doubted any changes she could have made if given the opportunity to redo the past would alter that.

Footsteps sounded through the empty building so she took her staff and stood by the fireplace, wanting to appear calm despite the turmoil wracking her ceaselessly. Her finger curled around the crook of wood, caressing the familiar knots creeping along the ironbark and forcing her mind to quiet. The footsteps lacked the deep thud of boots and she hadn’t seen boots by the sword. The Knight-Captain was either wandering around without shoes or he was an elf, which was unusual but certainly not unheard of. She’d seen more elven initiates in the recent months than she’d seen in all her years before. The Chantry no longer had the luxury of exclusivity or racism, which accounted for how the rebellion had managed to procure so many of their swords- the new initiates lacked the blind faith that had been a pre-requisite before Kirkwall.

That thought reminded her of Fenris again. She turned away from the door, not wanting the Knight to see her weakness. It opened almost silently, the faint ease of smooth hinges accompanied only by the soft whoosh of air as the door displaced it. Hawke looked at the fire, taking a moment to compose herself before she dealt with the Knight.

“It certainly took you long enough, Hawke. I was beginning to think you’d never leave the thicket.”

That dark timbre, the slight accent that accompanied a voice that growled her name like even its mere acknowledgement of her was an accusation. Her head dropped and she knew without even looking whom the voice belonged to. Tears of relief threatened to well up in her eyes. Even though she knew the man was likely prepared to kill her, she really would rather it be he than anyone else. She briefly considered falling to her knees before him, beckoning him to reach into her chest and crush her heart literally this time instead of breaking it into pieces as he had in the Gallows. He’d said that he made a mistake in letting her get too close… she wondered to whom that mistake really belonged. It was the first rule of survival, he’d claimed, but that was really all she’d been doing since she’d fled the city and his still body.

He’d turned on her in the end, mere days after they’d begun quietly rebuilding their relationship, trying to take things slowly. His simple declaration of wanting to walk into the future by her side crushed under the realization that there was apparently no future to be had. What killed her was that she couldn’t really even blame him- not with his past. The elf had raised his sword against her and she, helpless given the situation, dispatched him accordingly or so she had thought. She’d tried to run, she truly had, tried to escape Meredith and the Chantry’s ashes but the Knight-Commander threatened to strike her down on the spot, backing the mage into a corner. It was doubtful that he felt she was as blameless in the situation, considering he’d been the one to lose the battle.

She turned, facing the elf she had not seen since that horrific night in Kirkwall. “Fenris,” she said his name lowly, like she was afraid any sudden movement would spark a battle. Words failed her. Dumbly, she said, “You’re alive,” needing some kind of affirmation that he was really there and not some mirage or fever dream.

He was leaning against the doorjamb; his lithesome frame bearing no obvious scars from where she’d cut him down with her magic, although she imagined there were some mental wounds that hadn’t quite healed. “And yet you don’t seem surprised in the least,” he mockingly sneered as he regarded her. Her crest and scarf were absent from his armor. He’d apparently absolved himself of his affection for her. It surprised her how much such a fatuous thing bothered her even after all this time.

“Not really,” she admitted with false confidence, leaning back against the wall next to the fireplace in a halfhearted attempt to look nearly a quarter as indignantly nonchalant as he. Fenris looked more or less the same as he had in Kirkwall, his armor was a little darker from time but he still bore a resemblance to a willowy, angry porcupine. The smile she gave him was genuine, although she could only imagine it looked contemptuous to him. “It seems we’re both delightfully difficult to kill,” she finished with the sarcasm she knew he both detested and expected.

“Not for any lack of effort,” he retorted with a bitter laugh, crossing his arms over his chest. The quiet elegance of his movement drew her focus, each flex of his muscles as graceful as they were deliberate- Fenris typically conserved his movements and was disinclined to pacing or fidgeting, preferring to be still if movement would not accomplish anything. She remembered running her fingers over his arms while he kissed her neck and murmured his affection into her hair.

“Certainly not.” The words felt sticky in her throat. It felt wholly unnatural to be standing before her former lover and speaking him these terribly casual words, pretending that everything was all right between them… especially the way he kept stealing glances at his sword in the corner- mainly because the last time she’d seen him, she’d struck him down. “So you’re a Templar now,” she finished carelessly, regarding the amulet around the elf’s neck.

His hand came up to fiddle with the flaming sword pendant that he wore to signify his position rather than the typical Templar armor. That made sense to her; Fenris’ armor had been specially crafted to work with his abilities- it would be madness to put the elf into the standard uniform- she suspected he would have quit training on the sole basis of not wanting to wear the ridiculous skirt. “Starkhaven’s Circle fell before this whole blighted mess began,” he offered flatly. “Sebastian had the former Knight-Commander tutor me personally after I recovered from my injuries. It seems these markings are good for many things.”

A sincere smile stole again across her face. She was happy that the elf had not been alone all this time, that he allowed himself to trust another and built a life for himself, albeit without her. “Carver always wondered about that,” she sighed whimsically. “He meant to ask you.”

“How is your brother by the way?” His question was deceptively casual, like this meeting was intended as a friendly catch up.

“Good. I mean, well enough for him,” she corrected herself with a small laugh. “Still the same sour disposition but he’s really matured since we saw you last. How is Sebastian?”

“Fine,” he replied with a relaxed shrug. “He took back Starkhaven with minimal fuss. He’s been looking for a wife to produce an heir.”

“I’d heard as much. It’s a shame, he was so happy in the Chantry.”

“Surprisingly, having his home and everyone he loved blown up by your fucking abomination put him onto a military track.” He sighed heavily and regarded her warily, running a hand over his suddenly tired face. “I must say, Marian, when I wrote you I never thought in a thousand years that you’d actually be stupid enough to come yourself.”

So here was the conversation that had been looming in the corners. The instinct to deflect with some witty comment or sarcastic barb failed her completely, which was fortunate considering Fenris likely wouldn’t have appreciated her effort to infuse humor into the dialogue. She pushed her dark hair away from her face and met his furious green eyes. “That’s saying quite a bit, considering your opinion of what I did in Kirkwall,” she said as she eschewed all the pretenses that kept them lying to one another with their platitudes.

His eyes narrowed, her answer clearly rankling him. “Those Templars were good men and women trying to stop a bad situation from deteriorating- a bad situation that _you_ allowed to happen because of your blind faith in an abomination! Their deaths are a direct result of your ignorance, Marian, as are the deaths of the people in the Chantry, as is Marethari’s death. You chose ignorance over the advice of myself and Sebastian and even Aveline,” he snarled, letting his anger slip through that infuriatingly calm veneer he’d been wearing. “Let us also not forget that you tried to murder me, Hawke. Stupid is the best I can think of you. Evil is beginning to feel more and more appropriate.”

She sighed, hoping the exhale would relieve the headache beginning to creep at her temples. “Those mages were just as much Anders’ victims,” she asserted. “The Circle had nothing to do with his actions. Meredith forced my hand, Fenris; she wouldn’t let me run. Regardless of whatever you think about me, I _am_ a mage. I had no choice. You did. You didn’t have to fight me.”

“You think I had a choice- that I _wanted_ to fight you?” he snapped. “My options were to fight you, help you free the mages or run while you build a new Imperium- a new paradise for your brothers to make themselves magisters and bring your reign of terror across Thedas. You know where I came from, Marian- that was no choice.”

Her weariness suddenly gave way to anger. It always came down to this with Fenris- the same fear and indignation he’d had when she met him all those years ago. Those same stigmas he never managed to grow out of; the ones that she suspected helped drive him from from her bed and her from his heart all that time ago. “Blah, blah, magisters, blah, blah, Tevinter,” she spat, uncaring of the deadly flash across his eyes. “If you were ever curious about the rise of the Imperium, wolf, this is it. The blanket executions and tranquilizations your people are meting out are pushing good people into senseless violence. Your Templar order is driving Thedas to chaos. You must listen to me, Fenris- neither side can win outright. There’s too much at stake.”

An elegant eyebrow arched as he coolly replied, “I see no problem with a Templar victory.”

She rolled her eyes and icily retorted, “If you see no problem with a totalitarian theocracy then why did you help me fight the Arishok?”

He cursed at her in Arcanum- she barely managed to conceal her smile at the warm familiarity the words brought her. “A… valid point, I’ll admit.” He heaved himself away from the door and paced closer, the cloying fire casting amber over his features as he asked the flames, “Where is Anders, Marian?” he asked quietly.

Her eyes closed, not wanting to think about everything that had happened with Anders since she’d seen Fenris last. “I don’t know,” were the only words she offered. She’d come here to talk, specifically about the abomination and the rebellion, but with Fenris regarding her so angrily, the words just dried up in her mouth.

It was peculiar that she’d been prepared to speak candidly with a stranger but was unsure if she could trust a man she’d once considered one of her most trusted confidantes- a man whose opinion mattered so deeply to her that she deliberately took him on jobs where she suspected they would clash on the outcome. They had stayed up late together, drinking wine and arguing semantics until she returned home to her lonely bed and he to his. But there had been things that Fenris had refused to discuss, Marethari’s sacrifice being one, the release of the apostate Emile de Launcet being just one more out of many. She had appreciated the elf levying his simplistic opinion at whatever magic-related task came to hand.

“You owe me more than your lies,” he snarled at the fire, pulling her back from her inattention as he leaned against the wall next to the fireplace.

“I’m not lying,” she asserted with an exasperated groan. “I do not know.”

“You know I have ways to make you talk, to turn the hawk into a songbird.” As he spoke the words, he was so monotone she wondered for a moment if he truly meant it. She looked up and saw him standing there, looking morose and lost.

“As lovely as that metaphor was, I still have nothing to tell you. If all you came here for was to ascertain Anders’ location, I’m sorry to say that I cannot help you.”

The flames set against his eyes like a forest fire as he contemplated the embers. “No, I also came to bring you back to the Starkhaven Circle to account for what you’ve done.”

She bowed her head again and leaned the slightest bit more against the wall, silently willing the stubborn elf to look at her. “I’m not going with you, Fenris,” she stated quietly, waiting for the inevitable storm to erupt.

He sighed heavily, like the air in his lungs was too heavy to hold any longer. “I’m not giving you a choice, Hawke. Come with me or we’ll rematch here. I think you’ll find my recent training has rendered me into a much better opponent for you.” He didn’t sound threatening or forceful; his words felt sad, like some terrible dolor had fallen over him in the span of the simple sentences he spoke.

She reached out and touched her fingers to his arm- a pale mimicry of the very act that had seen them both tumbling into bed all those years ago. He growled at her, pulling his arm away as he withdrew from her. She tried to make eye contact with him but he steadily regarded the fire. “Don’t do this again, Fenris,” she murmured. “I truly don’t think I could bear it.”

He bowed his head and whispered, “Then you’ve made your choice.”

His hand reached out lightning fast and punched her squarely in the chest, the impact sent her reeling back and knocked the wind from her. He advanced quickly upon her, looking ill as he raised his fist to her again. Anticipating his next move, which was actually rather easy considering he was practically broadcasting it, she ducked and landed a solid strike against the elf’s shoulder, using a bit of telekinesis to heighten the severity of the blow and compensate for her inadequate physical strength. The only options she had were to kill him or escape… preferably the latter. But while she knew she may be willing to pull her punches, the elf likely was not. He’d only need to hit her once more to have her at a severe disadvantage, twice and she could go down entirely. She had to incapacitate him as quickly as possible if she wanted him to live.

Fenris stumbled back and glowered maliciously at her as she quickly cast a barrier on herself to stave off the worst effects of his fists. They squared off against one another and she brought her staff forward just in time to block another of Fenris’ brutal strikes. The blow to the ironbark quaked her grip and slid her feet back on the floor infinitesimally. She placed herself between Fenris and his deadly sword, suspecting dismally that if he were to wield it, she would have no chance at winning. Elegantly stretching a long arm out, he touched his fingers to hers. She was struck for a moment by the beauty of his movement before he crushed her hand against her staff as he activated the lyrium.

It felt like the Fade was being pried out of her, wrested violently from that spot in the center of her mind where she depended on it. In the span of seconds, Fenris had managed to drain a majority of her mana, leaving her feeling drunk and disoriented by the time she could break away. The staff in her hand was snatched from her grip and she dimly heard it hit the floor. Her hand darted out to slap him, dragging her nails hard across his face when he approached. Then she was being held against him, an awkward embrace fixing her hands to her sides. Her head was spinning and it was everything she could do not to retch the contents of her stomach onto the elf before her.

“Why did you come, Hawke?” he rumbled into her ear.

She groaned, trying to force her mind to work properly in the absence of the Fade. She latched her mouth onto his neck and sank her teeth in, gagging a bit when the twang of his blood hit her tongue. His hands fell away from her and she collapsed to the floor or perhaps he shoved her. She looked up shakily to regard his amused smirk. “We cannot keep hacking each other to death.” She mentally cursed at how weak she sounded in her own ears. “We have bigger enemies. If this keeps up, there won’t be a holy order any longer and the only surviving mages will be abominations and blood mages.”

He blotted the blood away from her bite and crossed his arms in a smug manner that made her want to slap the expression clear from his face. “So your ranks are weakening from the inside. I told you they’d turn.”

“And you pushed them to do it,” she whimpered as she tried to rise but couldn’t get her unsteady feet to cooperate. “Maker, it’s instinct to survive, Fenris. Did you really think Meredith’s Rite of Annulment was going to be carried out without a fight? Did you expect us to fall to our knees and present you our necks?”

He reached down and grabbed her bicep and yanked her to her feet before yelling “You were never among them! You were never in danger, Marian! Meredith was willing to spare you!”

“Spare me if I helped her murder every mage in the Circle! That’s not salvation; that’s blackmail!” she fired back, pulling her arm from Fenris’ grip, stumbling for a moment as she found her feet again. She narrowed her eyes at him and scowled, “I suppose you heard about her end. The woman was utterly mad.”

“And Orsino helped murder your mother.” The statement brazed into her soul and she was momentarily overwhelmed by the desire to fight against those words, regardless of how true they had been.

She swung at him, knowing the moment her fist moved that it was a mistake. His hand intercepted her wrist easily, popping her quickly across her mouth with a loose fist. Even with the mystical armor, she felt a bruise well up. Still reeling, her body was spun backward as he dragged her frame against his, pinning her arms against her with a strong grip around her waist. She struggled, feeling the sparks starting to return to her fingertips and willing them to shock him away. Her mana was filtering back, albeit more slowly than she’d like. The lyrium rendered Fenris into a Templar of exquisite abilities and his effect on her link to the Fade lingered unlike any others’.

He adjusted his grip, holding her with one arm while the other turned her head to face him. “So what do you do when they betray themselves?”

“I kill them.”

And he kissed her. It wasn’t delicate or sweet. It wasn’t loving or kind. It was a brutal punishment. It was a celebration of her fallen comrades. But almost as quickly as it had started, it shifted into something sweeter. His hands spread over the fabric of her robes and dragged her closer and she gasped. The elf used the opportunity to sweep his tongue over hers, invading her mouth with a low, breathy sound. His fingers tangled into her soft hair while their mouths caressed one another and she sighed contentedly against him, quickly forgetting why they’d been fighting in the first place.

It was painfully familiar and she wanted nothing more than to give in to it. She almost lost herself to it entirely before a twinge in her jaw shocked her back into reality. The pain brought her back to herself- they were fighting and Fenris was using her affection for him as a weapon against her. The thought, however true or false it may have been, snapped her from the stupor his mouth had brought her to and she stomped her foot against his instep, collapsing the structure of his ankle beneath her unforgiving foot. The embrace of his arms fell away and he stumbled back; she took the advantage, swinging her leg up and over to connect with his face- a move Isabela had taught her. The former slave toppled to the ground; almost surprising her at the easy fall… but perhaps she’d landed an extremely lucky shot against the seasoned warrior.

He glared bloody murder at her as he wiped an errant trail of saliva and blood from his lips with the white pad of his thumb. “It appears I am not the only one who has acquired some new skills.”

“If you wanted to talk, you should have offered tea in the parlor,” she sneered at her downed foe.

She was pleased to see he was less steady on his feet than he had been before taking the blow to the skull as he rose to his feet and squared off with her once again. “I did not come here to talk.”

“No,” she acknowledged with a small pang of sadness as she raised her arms to fight him again, “you didn’t.”

He closed his eyes painfully for a moment and started to say something. She took the opportunity to land another blow, summoning flames from her dwindling connection to the Fade to course down her arm and fan over him on impact. He yelped in surprise before the fire suddenly dissipated, the flaming sword pendant glowing a peaceful blue before dulling back into shining steel, sucking the deadly fire within it. Shit. He’d had it charmed against fire, which he knew to be one of her strongest talents; Maker only knew what else he’d enchanted it with. Unharmed from her sneak attack, the elf glowered at her.

With her adversary advancing on her again, she focused quickly on her connection to the Fade, feeling her vision snap into monochrome as she conducted the energy through her body. She saw his endurance coming from him in vibrant yellow waves, and she summoned it from him, calling on the Fade to reach for him and sucking the stamina from his body. Fenris faltered as he was drained, moaning as she drew away his strength, but with a startling blast of fortitude, he lunged forward and backhanded her. The impact from the metal cut her cheek as it sent her tumbling to the oaken floor and ended her siphon, her psychic armor only taking a fraction of the sting away.

A flash of blue and Hawke noticed the sudden rush of frost over her skin and a fleeting lack of all sound- but even as the sensation ended and the hum of noise returned to the world, she knew the effects were far from over. It was the Templar’s Silence and she knew attempting to cast anything would result in failure so long as she felt the acrid tingle in he air. He stood over her, his hand tangling into the front of her robes and wrenching her partially from the ground. “Where is he, Hawke?” he spat, his heavy gauntlet connecting with her face again and sent her ears ringing but he was severely weakened, she could tell.

“So now you want to talk?” she whispered, struggling to keep conscious. She reached back and felt her fingers connect with her staff. Then she spit, the saliva and blood landing directly in his eye. He winced and reeled back, dropping her heavily on her bottom. Swinging her staff low, she smashed the blunt edge of the crook into his knee, sending him crashing to the floor. She turned, stumbling to her feet and pounding down the hallway as she dashed through the swinging door to the kitchen. Escape was her only option, Fenris was too strong to subdue while the Silence held. The air still tingled around her and she wondered in dim panic how long Fenris’ Silence would hold. Numbed fingers reached for the lock on the door when a heavy weight tackled her from behind, compressing her body painfully against the wood.

The furious elf hissed, “Where is he?” His frame was heavy against her back and he held her pinned to the door by his sheer weight. Deciding to use his body against him she sighed and relaxed, arching her back to press herself against his groin and moaning softly. Fenris exhaled painfully and she felt him stiffen against her body so she arched again, teasing him, letting the line of her buttocks cradle his erection. The next sound she heard was that of his gauntlets falling to the floor. He hauled her away from the door, pinning her hips against the counter and letting his naked hands unfasten the clasps on her robes with rugged efficiency, exposing half her torso, grinding his hips against her the entire time.

He pressed his lips against her neck, suckling and biting before he cupped her breast in his hand. She didn’t have to fake the deep shudder that rang through her as he teased her nipples, plucking them into tautness. He groaned and whispered hotly in her ear, “You were never a whore before. What else has he been teaching you?”

She didn’t need to think of any sort of indignant response as she noticed the air had ceased prickling at her skin. Her goal had been accomplished. The Silence he’d covered the Fade with had lifted and she heard it singing to her once more, so she took full advantage of it before he realized and readied another attack. She clapped a telekinetic fist upon him, knocking him clear away from her. He looked dazed for a moment, clearly not anticipating her move. A snarl had just taken his face when she launched a fireball, then lightning, then a cone of ice in rapid succession, deciding to go for the shock and awe combination that had done so well for her in the past. She smirked at him, she’d managed to pin him in a corner with the ice shards. Fenris howled at her and she backed away.

She should go. She didn’t want to fight him and she couldn’t win unless she wanted to kill.

A brilliant flash of blue flashed against the walls and she instinctively grasped her staff and swung it behind her. He grunted when the blunt end caught his cheek, snarling as he spat his blood onto the floor between them. Summoning her connection to the Fade, she forged a glyph between her hands and cast it before him, darting forward to deliver her own silencing technique, a single punch to the throat immediately followed with a sharp jab to his face. The noise of his choking hid the sound of him nullifying the glyph and he was on her again before she had a chance to react.

He made as if to dart toward his sword and she immediately moved to block him. The feint worked as he quickly changed angles, grabbing her staff and using her momentum to fling her bodily against the wall, knocking several paintings to the ground. Wrenching the weapon from her hands, he jabbed her once in the stomach, causing her organs to shift painfully. She screwed up her focus again, and smirked knowingly at him. The elf faltered for a moment as she activated a new talent she’d picked up. His eyes widened as he lost the ability to focus on her as she darted forward, landing a series of blows to the Templar’s torso. In what had to have been the luckiest shot of the evening, he managed to grab hold of her fist after it collided into his bruised face and with a snarl, nullified her cloaking spell.

With her staff knocked away, he pinned her hands at her side. He was physically stronger than she and mere resistance wouldn’t grant her escape. “You’re holding back,” he panted in her ear.

“So are you,” she whispered back before pulling away and head butting him as hard as she could. The impact of their collision sent bright lights scattering through her vision. The world exploded in color. His arms tightened against her and he staggered and lost his balance before sinking to his knees, still holding her captive as she fought to kick away from him. He shifted her legs to straddle him to keep her from making painful contact with his groin. She groaned, sagging against him for a moment before pulling back to slam their skulls together again.

This time, he anticipated the attack and ducked his head to the side and her head thudded harmlessly against his neck. They weakly struggled against one another, Hawke too weak to break away and Fenris too exhausted to do any damage, just clutching her bodily against him while he fought to hold her still. They were for the moment at a stalemate.

“If I wanted the Imperium, I’d have gone to Tevinter,” she asserted in a whisper. “I just couldn’t slaughter a bunch of innocent Circle mages. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“No,” he answered viciously, “you just didn’t care if you did.” He bit her hard then and she didn’t have the strength to push him off nor did she really want to. Maybe it was energy from the fight, maybe it was because she cared so deeply for him- she wasn’t sure- but when she felt his teeth break the skin on her shoulder Hawke didn’t scream.

She moaned, shuddering hard against him, shocked by her own reaction to him. “I did,” she whimpered. “I did care.”

His breathing went hard as she felt him stiffening between her legs. He shifted his mouth, tenderly dragging his lips over the wound he’d inflicted before pressing painful teeth back against it, as if testing her reaction. The result was the same, his teeth sending a hard throb lower in her body and she moaned again, sighing when his hands moved from holding her wrists to weaving his fingers with hers. The low sound of his groan crashing around her as he suckled the wound, then kissed a slow path across her neck to her other shoulder and repeated the treatment. She gripped his fingers and arched against his erection as his teeth sunk into her skin, tilting her head to give him better access, dimly wondering what the Void was wrong with her and equally not caring. It was Fenris and it felt good; so she writhed against him shaking and gasping while the wolf feasted on her neck and shoulders, grinding between her legs to push her higher.

She pulled her fingers from his, ignoring his snarl and began pulling his armor off, vaguely recalling how to unfasten the buckles from their one night together nearly four years ago. His torso bare, she scratched her fingers deeply into his skin, reveling in his quick gasp at the rough treatment. The air slammed out of her lungs when he threw her roughly onto her back. Strong hands tugged the fabric of her robes over her shoulders and down her body, catching her smallclothes with them while she struggled to catch her breath. Then he caught her behind her knees and pulled her against his mouth, hooking her thigh over his shoulder and easing an arm beneath to catch her waist and trap her.

She screamed nearly painful inarticulate cries between her desperate struggled breaths as he brutally worked his mouth over her as he unfastened her breast band. His free hand scratched deliberately painful trails along her hips and thighs, his fingers lightening the pressure when he curved them along the more delicate skin of her inner thighs and up to plunge inside. Arching, she rode his hand; her feet struggled for purchase and he dug his nails into her hip to grip her tighter, letting his head fall away from her and press his teeth into her thigh while he watched her twisting and moaning against him. He bit her inner thigh harder, nearly breaking the skin as his thumb found the bundle his tongue had been stroking moments before. His wide eyes caught hers, glittering as she keened loudly, unsure if she could separate the sensations wrought by his teeth and hands, before he turned to assault her with his mouth again. She was nearly there when he pulled away and turned her over, hoisting her to her knees and she felt the blunt head of his sex pressing against her.

He let out a string of Arcanum curses that shot straight through her before pulled away. “If you want this, you need to tell me,” he groaned into her ear, leaning over her. He gripped her hair hard and turned her head so she could see his face. His eyes were hot and deadly serious. “If you don’t want it, it stops. You are free to go. I won’t follow. I will not use sex as a weapon against you.”

She closed her eyes, actually thinking it sweet that her consent was important to him considering they’d been beating the Blight out of each other for nearly a half hour without such niceties as permission. But Fenris was a man of ambiguous principles, and knowing that it almost made complete sense to her that while killing her may fall into his entirely acceptable mores, raping her certainly did not. The offer to let her run, so her options weren’t simply sex or more fighting, was a thoughtful addition. He needed to know she wanted him, even as rough as they were with each other, and that she didn’t want to escape.

He needed to know that for whatever would happen next, she wanted what was happening now.

“I want it,” she mewled her reassurance, arching back toward him. Before she could say more, he’d dragged his cock back to her entrance, filling her in one hard thrust. She gasped at the sudden invasion. It had been far too long and she stretched almost painfully around him.

“You let me know if you change your mind.” He closed his eyes and began massaging her scalp, his free hand dug into her hip as he pulled back.

He started a pace that was steady and relentless. Tangling his hand in her hair, he forced her head against the carpet, the bruise on her cheek stinging as his thrusts pushed her against the floor. He was so deep she thought she might choke. She flexed her shoulders, trying to claw at his hand when he released her hair and caught both her wrists, twisting them behind her back and using them to pull her steady against him. The new position pushed her breasts against the coarse carpet and the bristly fiber teased a new ache against her nipples. She arched her chest against it when his hips pushed her forward; gasping as yet another layer was added onto the onslaught.

He growled at her, “Beautiful,” as his thrusts lengthened to press her body harder. The long fingers from one hand started roaming her body, stroking her back and bottom and scratching lightly. “Tell me what you want,” he groaned when he started slowing his pace.

“I want you,” she moaned while she tried to arch back against him, not wanting him to stop.

“Want me to what?” he returned. She whimpered and he came to a full stop. “Say it, Marian,” he whispered, a twinge of frustration in his voice as he urged her again, “Just say it.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Fuck me.”

He groaned and started a slow, hard, punishing rhythm, each snap of his hips tearing a cry from her mouth while he held her in place, obeying her request. “Say it again,” his voice was hoarse as he pleaded and she felt suddenly powerful, pinned down as she was. So she did, over and over again, keening the words between her gasps. Fenris twined the fingers of one hand into hers and held them in a strong grip as she lay splayed beneath him, sobbing and helplessly begging him to fuck her as he pushed against her womb. His other hand explored with his grasp and nails and palm and fingers. She just kept chanting and arching against his body and greedy hands, trusting him to touch and take whatever he wanted because she knew that he’d give her what she needed. It was unlike anything she’d ever had before. He’d led her into something dark and carnal and she followed him willingly, if even slightly relieved at someone else taking the reins for once.

It may have been too soon. It may have been an eternity. She didn’t know- she’d lost an understanding of time; but her climax came almost as a surprise. It wasn’t the slow, mutual buildup she understood- he was pushing her, pulling her, invading her, controlling her and she knew that when she came, it would belong to him, not her- he’d forged it inside her body as surely as he was wrenching it from her. She thought she’d scream, but when her body finally snapped and she fell over the edge, her lungs constricted, leaving her gasping and choking as strangled cries escaped her throat and her body clutched him to coax him even deeper. He groaned another series of Arcanum and she felt him twitch inside her before his body stiffened and seized, pumping into her as he gasped.

He released her hands and bowed on top of her, kissing the length of her spine and stroking the lines of her body while their breathing returned to normal. She felt residual twitching fire through her body, like it didn’t want the sex to be over. His gasp sounded in her ear and she guessed he was having a similar realization himself. She’d never had such… rough sex before but given the boneless heap she felt like now and the pleasant fog that glazed over her mind and the overt affection Fenris was showering on her, she just might have to consider fighting him more often.

“What does this mean?” he murmured between kisses, his hand caressing the ink he’d observed on her shoulder blade, behind her heart. It was a handful of symbols from an old text dating from the Nevarran Circle that several apostates at a particular camp had printed onto their bodies; that when she’d heard the transcription, she, too, asked that the symbols be inked into her skin by the resident tattooist. She started seeing others take the mark in other camps as well once she explained it to them- the Warriors and lapsed Templars more inclined to do so as an outward show of unanimity than the mages were, feeling a physical marking to be too similar to the Tranquil brand.

“I could tell you,” she answered quietly before capturing his head in her hand, “but I’d have to kill you,” she finished, turning to pull him into a kiss, which he met eagerly.

He pulled himself from her body and rolled her over, stroking over her face gently. He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her properly, although she could taste his blood from where she’d hit and kicked him. Their fingers soothed over the wounds they’d put on each other, she felt him smirk when she winced at the burn the rug had inflicted on her face.

His dark chuckled rumbled against her neck, “Heavy words.” He kissed his bite on her shoulder again, “I prefer these markings on you myself.”

“Blighted wolf,” she whispered but the words were loving. His eyes, his huge green eyes, warmed as they regarded her. She smoothed her fingers over the shallow bridge of his nose, his bruised cheek, up his sharp ears.

He twitched bodily when she caressed the tip of his ear and returned the favor by stroking the line of her throat with his thumb. “Rotten bitch,” he murmured back with an earnest and affectionate smile before he rose to kiss her again; the sweetness in his kiss completely belied the words he’d spoken.

They stumbled to their feet and he lifted her against him, kissing her as he maneuvered them to a tiny bedroom and sunk them both onto the bed. He was gentle as he moved over her, murmuring endearments of his affection into her ear as he took her, leaving her a whimpering heap when she unraveled once more. But they were far from done, they kept pulling each other back, attacking each other with tenderness with the same tenacity they’d used to attack each other with violence; against the headboard, above him, facing away, in his lap, on her back, both of them trying to postpone the rest of the world and their obligations waiting outside the bed.

She made love to him, knowing each time could be the last. Perhaps he did, too, and that’s why it took sheer exhaustion to conclude their intimacy, when he collapsed on top of her, unwilling to separate himself from her body. He murmured to her in drowsy Arcanum between kisses he smoothed over her neck and mouth as he drifted off into the Fade, his forehead pressing against her skin, his length no longer stretching her as tightly.

Hawke, unfortunately, found no such sanctuary in his arms.

The mindlessness of pleasure concluded, she laid awake as reality filtered back in, the feeling of his arms around her becoming a prison rather than an embrace. His body, warm from their mutual exertions, felt like liquid fire against her skin. She couldn’t breathe under the oppressive pressure of his weight- suffocating beneath the uncertainty of what would come next. Would he leave? Were more Templars coming? She remembered the last time she’d been with him, when she’d awoke and all his apparent affection had evaporated in the span of a single lonely dream. A solitary thought kept dashing across her mind like a marathon runner laced on a tether-

_Run._

Anxiety overcame her, the memories of him walking away, beseeching her for forgiveness. He’d used her, then turned her affection for him on its head to guilt her into thinking he was the one who had been used, and every word he’d uttered while they joined together was seemingly forgotten. Then he had killed Danarius and his first act of his newfound freedom had been to declare his affection for her… which lasted all of three days. She’d begged him to join her in defending the innocent- while they were still innocent- but his hatred was too strong for him to overcome; he hated mages more than he could ever care for her. He expressed a desire to rid himself of his hatred and she foolishly believed him. The tragic part was that she couldn’t even blame him when she saw his anger flash over his beautiful eyes as he sneered at her. Fenris loved his hatred, he relished in the sickness he’d been infected with… and she should have known the moment Meredith had forced her hand that her path would unleash that feral animal again.

 _Run_.

Suddenly, his arms loosely enfolding her may as well have been his fingers wrapped around her neck, squeezing the fight out of her… and Hawke had to fight. Maker help her, she had to stop this madness. She had to stop Anders before he killed anyone else. Fenris would turn her in. He’d sit her in front of the Grand Divine and let her be made Tranquil. She’d be a disembodied woman for the rest of her life, subject to rapes and abuses she couldn’t even acknowledge- would he want to be with her then? She’d nearly killed him, she finally realized, but he had tried to kill her, too. He simply had not been as good at it. And ever the fool, she tumbled back into bed with him even after they’d beaten each other bloody because he’d always had the singular ability to turn her world on its ear.

_Run._

She slammed her eyes shut against the mental command. Varric had already been interrogated by the Chantry, he’d communicated that much to her through a blind contact in Denerim. They were furiously searching for her. This could be an awfully cruel ruse to lure her into complacency- but she didn’t know for sure. Fenris might not turn her in to the Chantry. He may want to be with her again. Their brawl may have been resolved by sex. He may be ready to listen to her. Pigs may, indeed, soar high in the skies where mere mortals cannot see them.

_Run._

She untangled her body from his, shuddering at his withdrawal from her. He rolled contentedly onto his side and continued his light snoring. She crept out of bed, feeling it a small miracle that he did not stir. The urge to cast a sleeping spell on him nearly overwhelmed her but she resisted. Perhaps she could have used it on someone else, but she couldn’t have done it to the sleeping wolf. She would not use her magic as a crutch around him; she would creep silently if only to prove to him that she did not rely on magic for everything.

The floorboards creaked as the mage stole from the bedroom. Whose room had it been, she wondered, where they’d spent the last hours pawing at each other? The elf remained asleep as she eased the door closed. Frantically, she searched for her clothing, finding her underclothes, robes and boots on opposite sides of the living space. Her body protested her garbing in shockingly intimate ways, her sex ached, her nipples stung, the scratches on her back burned and the bites he’d left on her throbbed. Her clothing donned delicately, she grabbed her staff. In a moment of impulsiveness, she reached for his sword and heaved it handle-first into the fire. Let it be too hot to hold… let her have a little more time to escape lest he come after her unarmed.

 _Run_.

The small cabin had been for the last hours a safe haven but it couldn’t last, she knew. Paradise wasn’t meant for the living, that’s what the Chantry taught. Mortals suffered in Thedas in order to be worthy of the world to come… Maker help her when she learned what suffering would come from her night here. She opened the door into the cold night air, the snow and frost beseeching that she run back inside to the warm man and the fireplace she’d absconded from. But Marian Hawke stood her ground, surveying the frozen tundra that meant not only her freedom but also her continued isolation. The battle would have to be fought alone. She’d found no ally here.

It wasn’t love, she told herself. It couldn’t be love.

But it was love… and she knew it.

_Run._

And so she did, taking a final look back before she escaped, sprinting wildly into the cold night.

 

* * *

_End Chapter 1_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've finally gotten around to posting on Ao3!


	2. Repurcussions

Nemesis  
Chapter 2- Repercussions

_“I assure you, I am not conflicted.”_  
 _Fenris_

Fenris woke suddenly, instantly alert. His dreams were quickly banished from his consciousness as he snapped back from the Fade, a leftover habit he’d developed as a slave and never felt a compulsion to shed- not that he was sure that he even could. He assessed his surroundings straightaway, he was not in his quarters at Starkhaven’s Circle nor was he outdoors staring up at the stars. Danarius and Hadriana were nowhere to be seen… because they were dead… he needed to remind himself of that fact at the start of this morning as he’d had to do every morning since he’d killed them. Annoyance twitched at his eye; it irked him to no end that the deceased magister and his evil bitch of an apprentice still plagued his first waking thoughts even after all these years. Those two refused give him a clear day even after their much-deserved deaths.

He filed his irritation away in his mind as he recognized his surroundings, promising himself that he’d deal with it during his morning meditations. This was the farmhouse he’d spent the last few days in, preparing for his meeting with Hawke. It had taken weeks to get correspondence through to her and he’d been utterly shocked when he received a reply, asking where and when he’d like to meet. The feelings he’d buried so thoroughly threatened to surface as he scrutinized her letter, recognizing her flowing script and familiar choice of wording. The hint of moonflowers and verbena and other strange aromas that tended to linger from potion making haunted the paper, an odd perfume he associated with only her and her magic. He’d quashed those feelings back down and began forming a plan to end the madness Hawke had fallen into as he’d errantly thrown her letter into the fire, refusing to acknowledge the sick pounding of his heart as he inadvertently created a woodsy incense that permeated her scent through his room and belongings.

His dreams that night had been pure torture. He replayed every kiss he’d shared with her, relived the ecstasy of being inside her when she buried her hands in his hair and threw her head back as she keened softly at his ministrations. In the Fade, he’d drank the slickness from between her thighs the night he’d laid with her and kissed the tears from her face the night her mother had been murdered. Every touch and smile he’d filed away in his mind had been prominently featured along with every moment with her he’d ever promised to remember. It was as though she had been there with him, both as the fearless leader who had warped the entire land and the shy, even timid, lover he alone had known her to be.

He’d changed rooms the next day, not that anyone noticed in the nearly empty Circle, and thrown the windows open to let the fresh air and sunshine purge his belongings of her. But it was futile. Those scents lingered… as did she.

Obviously, she had a way of dredging these feelings right back to the surface. Now he lay naked save for a thick blanket covering his form. The memories of the night prior flooded back to him- her touch, her kiss, her gasps- everything. It felt like ages since he’d seen her, even longer since he had touched her. But that wasn’t why he had come. He was supposed to arrest her, to detain her. Instead he’d fallen into intoxication at her voice and her skin like a drunk taking up the bottle again- and it had been glorious.

Impulse had pushed his lips against hers- that and a fierce desire to prove to himself that he’d driven her from his system, which he clearly had not if his reaction to her was any indicator. His infatuation had kept him at a disadvantage, left him unable to stop touching her; even the collision of her hand against his face had bordered on euphoric… because for the first time since the Gallows, he had felt _something_ … _anything_ other than that oppressive apathy that had ruled his life the last year, revealing itself only when he saw her again. Each touch shattered through the numbness until the headiness of her had caused him to buckle and succumb to her again.

What the fuck was this all supposed to mean?

Reaching for her, the total awareness of his solitude hit him. She wasn’t in bed with him. Where had she gone? Not even bothering to search for his clothes, he rolled from the blankets and winced as he put weight onto his sore ankle. She’d gotten him good with that hit and the suspicion that he’d be nursing a slight limp for the next week or so did little to introduce regret into his present emotional repertoire. Even as an amused smirk stole across his face, one of his vicious bruises sang in pain. Fuck, these bruises hurt. He couldn’t be sure if she’d been subtly using healing magic on him last night or if her mere presence had superseded the pain. He would have to commend her for her rather inventive creation of telekinetic punching, there’s no way the mage could have done this sort of damage with simply her fists. With another grimace, he conducted a quick mental assessment of his injuries and was pleased to find that his angry witch had inflicted no lasting damage.

His? He paused as he filtered that thought through his mind and decided it was inappropriate, pledging himself to purge such possessive thoughts from his mental vocabulary. Such thoughts accompanied a painful clarity. This couldn’t be a repeat of his behavior in Kirkwall- she’d not wait around for him to work up the nerve to face her. He needed to face her and talk, not about the war… but about them and whatever it was that had happened last night; but he also needed to think on what it was that kept him devoted to her even when he wanted to beat her to death in anger.

He needed to speak her but damned if he knew what to say or where to even begin.

He commenced to slowly stalk the house nude, hoping to find her but also postponing the encounter. Dismal panic covered him when he saw her clothing gone. Perhaps she was in the kitchen, he thought but the mage had not lingered there either. His heart sunk with the realization that she’d left. Regardless, he continued searching for her on the off chance that he was mistaken. It felt painfully familiar, except this time he was the one who woke alone. He wondered if she’d been as conflicted when she left as he’d felt all those years ago when he fled from her, and himself, into a different cold night.

The thought that she’d retreated from him caused a painful lurch in his chest. It was all wrong, he thought, the events of last night had exploded into being without any forethought or reason. Hawke had to be just as confused as he. Before the Gallows, he and Hawke had been trying to take it slow. The memory of the night before Thedas had crumbled came to the forefront of his mind. They’d raided the wine cellar of the Amell estate and settled into one of the many subterranean libraries, sharing stories and drinking wine and mocking the ridiculous poetry Marian had found addressed to her mother from the Comte de Launcet. He practically groaned when he recalled how the night had ended with Marian, in only her short dressing gown, sitting astride him while he’d kissed her senseless and massaged her thighs; he’d swallowed her whimpers, letting his fingers tease dangerously close to the joining of her legs and occasionally stroking a thumb over her damp smallclothes- that was about as physically slow as they’d managed to get but there was something to be said for at least trying.

How that had turned into betrayal followed by nearly a year apart followed by attempted murder followed by hours of sex was beyond his meager understanding of relationships… but he was fairly certain that particular progression did not adhere to any typical modes of courtship. As little as he liked it, he could understand her need for distance from him, he likely needed the same despite wanting noting more than to fall into bed with her again. He deserved no less than her escape all things considered.

His eyes fell on a folded sheet of parchment resting by the door. Heart pounding, he rushed to it and lifted it to his face to let her scent wash over him again. Was this a note she’d left for him, he wondered? Had she decided to leave him an explanation or an apology for her absence? Could this even be a note promising to return, asking that he wait for her? Shaking fingers opened the letter, revealing it to be the one he’d sent to her, bidding her here to the Frostback Mountains so they could discuss the urgent business of hers. She must have dropped it, blast it all.

He barely repressed the urge to howl.

He’d meant to hear her out but she had a way of overriding his system until she was the only thing left in it. Rather than giving into his weaker instincts with her, the desires to hold and comfort her, he’d swung his fists instead. His sword had remained in the corner during their fight- where he deliberately left it, knowing that if he hit her with it, the battle would be won but she would be lost to him forever. He’d touched her and been unable to stop, every moment he wasn’t touching her felt like she was being ripped away from him all over again. Her skin left him drunker than any wine. Curses spilled from his mouth as regret finally found him; he should have listened to her, talked to her, or at least thought to tie the damned girl to the bed to prevent her escape… although he couldn’t even pretend that knotting her wrists to the headboard would have resulted in much conversation regardless of how exhausted he’d been.

Now there was an idea his groin could agree with.

He cursed himself a thousand times as a fool for falling asleep before he could talk to her, to try and sort out the mess they’d found themselves in. But more importantly, she’d wanted to talk about something as well- it had been her whole reason for meeting with him; but perhaps what happened between them last night had said it for her.

He glowered at himself- that wasn’t true and he knew it. His identity had been secret to her until she’d seen him. She’d wanted to meet with him as a Knight-Captain, risking her life to convey something important directly to a senior Templar. He’d let his anger get the better of him and they’d attacked each other until they’d exorcised the fury from their bodies. They’d fought, then they’d fucked, then they’d made love, then he’d fucking fallen asleep. Now he had lost both the woman and whatever information she had. Sebastian was going to kill him if he ever found out how.

The prince had already questioned Fenris’ motivations for meeting with Hawke. At what Sebastian had interpreted as an insufficient answer, he made sure Fenris was clear on his opinions regarding Hawke- reciting her offenses for the elf once again. She had cared nothing for the people who died in the Chantry, turning a mass-murdering abomination loose into the world and joining him in the singular vitiation of the Circles and the Maker’s divine will. She had tried to kill Fenris, had not cared when he stood in her way. But now more than ever, those accusations felt false. She told him that she cared and Fenris, against all rhyme and reason, found himself believing her.

Unsurprisingly, Sebastian tried to talk him out of going- offering to send another, offering to trap her, but then he’d refused to even consider it. Then without any further prompting, he’d simply consented to Fenris’ wish and the elf had set out with grim determination in his mission- Find Hawke and bring her back to Starkhaven or find Anders and turn him over to the Chantry. The prince had been adamant that Anders be executed by the courts and Hawke be tried for her crimes. Unbidden, his last conversation with Sebastian played through his mind.

“I know you were intimate with her before her betrayal, Fenris,” the former prince had informed him as he’d watched the elf prepare his horse for the trek south. Witchduck had been a gift from the former Knight-Commander and as much as Fenris hated to admit it, its given name was growing on him. Witchduck obediently lifted his hoof and allowed Fenris to pick clean the debris from beneath. They both ignored the prince as Fenris continued grooming the animal, finding no small comfort in tending to the steed’s rather simple needs.

Sebastian had sighed loudly, causing Fenris to cease his task and rise to look at him expectantly. The horse stamped his feet against the hay to express his dismay at the cessation in his grooming until Fenris began stroking his coat. “I’ll be candid,” the prince continued, shuffling through Witchduck’s tack to help the elf finish before the horse got more irritated, “I fear her to sway your loyalties.”

“I assure you, I am not conflicted,” had been the Templar’s quick reply. Before he’d seen Marian, the words had been easy to say to the man. They had not been a lie. He’d truly thought he could keep his head straight around her. Now it could not be further from the truth.

“Then what is it you hope to accomplish with this meeting?” Sebastian had asked, ducking down and handing the elf the curry comb from his tack. The question was simple enough and only yesterday his answer had encompassed that same simplicity. Now… now Fenris was no longer so sure.

“She needs to understand what she’s done,” was the answer he’d offered the prince. Then he’d returned his focus to brushing the stallion, knocking loose the dirt and giving the horse a decent massage in the process.

Sebastian had let out a bark of bitter laughter and leaned against the stable door, “It seems unlikely that she’s somehow missed the consequences of her actions, Fenris. Hawke is many things but even her blindness for the abomination hasn’t rendered her completely stupid.”

Fenris dropped the curry and ran a bare hand over the steed’s coat, drawing a strange sort of calm from feeling the heavy muscles bunch and flex beneath his fingers. “You knew her as well as I, Sebastian,” he’d said finally. “I believe she can be persuaded to abandon Anders.”

“No, Fenris, I did not know her nearly as well as you,” the prince had sighed wearily as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “But bring her back here and we will see what can be done.”

“That is my intent.”

Fenris had ignored the prince again at that point and Sebastian decided to remain silent as he observed the elf quietly tend to the stallion, which glared at the man as if daring him to interrupt his grooming again.

“Love is a powerful weapon in the hands of your enemy, Fenris,” had been the prince’s final plea to him as the elf saddled Witchduck. “Remember that.”

The elf had shaken his head and asserted, “I do not love her.”

Sebastian had shot him a long, serious look and replied, “Love is like faith, it’s not something that’s made true or false through declarations - it’s something you simply do.”

“Anything I felt for her died when she tried to kill me,” he’d reassured the prince, ignoring the heaviness that suddenly fell in the pit of his stomach.

It had been a lie… he had known that much even then.

Looking back, he realized that he hadn’t come here to convince Marian to return to Starkhaven. He was no longer sure exactly why he’d come. All those simplistic mantras he’d chanted to himself about justice and retribution and the determination that he was entirely in the right now felt hollow and false.

He had been so determined that Hawke would answer to him for what she’d done, prepared to drag her back to the Starkhaven Circle kicking and screaming if he had to. He’d been ready to pin her down and make her see reason- to scream that this battle was futile, that she was making everything worse by fighting against the Chantry. But after last night, more than anything Fenris just wanted to understand what it was that she was trying to do. The Imperium couldn’t reign across the land; he knew she believed that. Her expressions of disdain and hatred for magocracy mirrored his own. So why was she fighting against them? He should have asked her these questions when she was still here.

The spirit hide armor was donned quickly, his fingers flying over the buckles and toggles in motions born from years of essentially wearing the same thing. He could fully dress in under three minutes while still half-asleep, a skill he’d honed while on the run through the Free Marches. A sigh escaped him as he fastened the Templar insignia pendant around his neck, displayed for the world to see his allegiance; and with a heavier breath he clasped the Lost Memory and slipped it beneath; it was her gift to him, resting against his skin- a token of things lost but not forgotten, the private memento he carried of her since the night she’d given it to him. It’s significance had shifted as time passed and now it was his daily personal punishment he inflicted upon himself for his blunder… for failing her when she needed him to save her from her own poor judgment.

If he had been stronger, he could have saved her. One surprise blow could have knocked her out and he could have dragged her unconscious body away from the mayhem. But she deserved better than that… she’d given him honor and he simply couldn’t attack her back.

A frown stole across his features. He could still save her. Regardless of what Sebastian may believe, Fenris knew now more than ever that Hawke could be redeemed in the eyes of both the Maker and men.

With his head bent down he sat on the bed, crossing his fingers between his knees as he recited the Canticle of Shartan silently. Sebastian and Petra, the former Knight-Commander of Starkhaven, had been surprisingly accommodating to the former slave and offered him this position for prayer, usually regarded for the ill or invalid and certainly not a pose a Templar would use even in injury, after he’d voiced his apprehension at prostrating himself on his knees. Fenris was also the only Templar permitted to use the dissonant verses in his morning routine, which Sebastian had in fact encouraged, claiming that if Shartan’s versus brought Fenris closer to the Maker then he should be permitted to meditate to them.

His short career as a Templar was already peppered with such oddities and exceptions. Danarius’ lyrium brands had rendered him into the only Templar in the Order who was completely self-reliant. Not only did he have no need to dose his blood with the doping effects of lyrium, the lyrium had no effect on his capabilities whatsoever. His lyrium infused abilities and seasoned fighting skills allowed him to complete in mere months what would have taken years for others. Some of the training he took to, some he had not. Petra had thoroughly explored the elf’s talents and sought to push him farther than he had ever thought himself capable with each training session. Outside of those brutal sessions with Petra, Fenris’ primary education within the Starkhaven Circle had been the Chant- and Sebastian had personally overseen much of that training.

He was grateful to the Sebastian, who had not only saved his life- heaving his limp near-corpse over his shoulder and storming from the Gallows after Meredith had been defeated- but he’d also given the elf a purpose, a god and a brother in the ruler himself. The man had put so much faith in him… how the Blight was he supposed to explain what had happened here?

He pushed those thoughts from his mind and refocused on the Chant, the words playing across his mind as he sat in quiet contemplation of his life and the Maker. The worry and discomfort that had been clouding his mind slowly lifted, as he began the painful task of accounting for his sins- the ones he was responsible for and the ones he merely supervised. He forced himself to think on Danarius and Hadriana and prayed that one day he’d have the strength to forgive them for being so painfully flawed but even after all this time, he still hoped the Maker would deny his request.

And Marian…

Her betrayal had sucked the color from his world so he’d thrown himself into prayer, hoping to regain some of what he’d lost when she’d single-handedly destroyed his faith in mages more thoroughly than even Anders could have.

The last year had been spent in singular focus- nothing would detract him from his goal of seeing the Circles reformed and mages captured safely again. He’d had moments of joy, Sebastian was an excellent verbal sparring partner and a better friend than he could have expected or hoped for, but everything had felt… subdued and unreal. In more than a few ways, he’d felt a slave again- that mindless disregard for his future or his past that fell over him as a slave resurfaced when he chanted his evening prayers until he went hoarse, reciting the verses hoping that perhaps this time they’d provide the answers that he needed.

The feelings Hawke evoked in him couldn’t be denied any longer, he’d known it the moment his eyes fell on her again and he’d reached for his anger because it was so much more comfortable than acknowledging the sweet ache in his chest. Even then, he hadn’t been able to maintain his fury, not when she looked so sad. Whatever it was that stood between them had passed the test of time. Sebastian had been right, he could not purge the mage from his system merely by declaring that he didn’t care.

He finished his mental inventory and completed his prayers, coming to the conclusion that he was indeed extremely conflicted regarding Hawke and simply accepting it rather than fight. It was something Sebastian and Petra had already known but he’d refused to acknowledge because he’d confused the constant numbness with dispassion. That was all right. The Maker would accept his mistakes so long as the elf was willing to work on them. What was important now was taking the long trip back to Starkhaven and think about what he should do next both in terms of Hawke and his status as a Templar.

Rising to his feet, he paused before he went to his pack and pulled her red handkerchief from it. He’d worn it since their night together all those years ago, when she’d trailed the soft cloth over his face and naked body in playful pre-coitus, only removing it last night so she would think that his affection had faded. Clearly, it hadn’t and he wondered amusedly if she had noticed. Knotting the cloth around his wrist again, he tucked his belongings into his pack. Her family crest remained in his pack, it would be suicide to display a token of allegiance to her.

Hopefully on the way to Starkhaven, he’d be able to think of a suitable excuse for why Marian was not with him. It hurt to do it- to let her run and not give chase. But he’d promised Marian that he’d let her escape and he meant to keep his word. He’d go back to Sebastian and try to drag Hawke back to Starkhaven another day. Satisfied with the calmness of his mind, he prepared for his departure, gathering his supplies together and packing them away neatly.

It wasn’t until he saw his sword in the fireplace- the blade glowing a dull red against the dying embers- and the dull realization struck him like a cudgel to the head. He openly and loudly cursed himself for every kind of fool as he carefully pulled the blade from the fire and winced as the red blade scarred the floor from its heat. This wasn’t the same rondo they’d danced to in Kirkwall. She wasn’t running away from him the way he’d run from her. His bird was on a flight for safety. She was afraid of him. He hadn’t really done much to dissuade her of that, either, recalling almost painfully the bruises he’d laid upon her before succumbing to her siren’s call.

The girl had run. And rightfully so. He would have to chase her, to apologize, to tell her the words he should have told her too long ago… after he’d figured exactly what those words were.

Maker, he’d fucked this up. He’d fucked this up _badly_.

The peace that had fallen over him dissipated in a sharp flash. He couldn’t let her go. Not again. Not like this. He left his sword and darted from the cabin into the cold snow, unarmed as he readied his horse and cantered into the wilderness to find her. He’d hear her out and he’d make this right, even if it killed him.

He took off in a fury after her, the letter he’d sent her tucked into the scarlet ribbon on his sleeve. Not because he hadn’t memorized the note… but because the paper smelled of her again. More snow had fallen between her escape and his awakening from slumber, obscuring her trail but not masking it entirely. With Witchduck, he’d have a better chance of catching up with her again. He followed the lopsided gait, observing the places she must have lost her footing and slipped. This sort of trail was commonly found in hunting when the prey was desperate to escape.

He slowed Witchduck to a trot when he saw Hawke’s trail veer into a small running stream where it promptly ended. For whatever faults the woman had, she was certainly skilled at stealth but she was an amateur rogue at absolute best. Unfortunately, his tracking skills were comparable. He could only hope that in her flight, she’d committed a few fatal errors. He followed the creek for a half-hour upstream with no success before doubling back in the other direction, hoping he’d be able to pick up some sign of her.

Fate and the Maker saw fit not to smile upon him. He returned to the cabin an hour later, cold and alone. Hawke’s escape left a cold feeling like a rock sitting in his throat. Stabling Witchduck again, he hefted a stack of grain to feed the horse. Guilt had him reaching for the sugar cubes he kept with his tack but the horse seemed determined to bear a grudge for a few minutes while Fenris tried to entice him with the treat before he gave in, forgiving him for neglecting his breakfast.

After he’d made proper amends to his horse he returned to the cabin, its warmth rapidly receding with the fireplace empty. He stormed through the rooms and began a methodical search of the area, hoping to find something, _anything,_ Marian could have left behind that would indicate where the frightened Mage was headed. There was no trace of either of them, save for a few remorseful blood spatters- nothing that would reveal to him where the Blight she thought she was going.

He growled as he snatched up his letter to her again. Another cursory scan indicated that she had not doodled in the margins or inked her own missive upon it. After months of planning, all he had to show from his meeting with his former lover were a startling number of bruises, a sore ankle, the scratches on his back and this damned letter, which was thrown unceremoniously onto the floor. Then something about the letter caught his eye. He stared dumbly at it for a moment, trying to divine exactly what it was that had caught his attention. A moment of inspiration had the elf lifting and angling the letter so the light from the window skimmed across the note, Fenris could detect faint depressions on the paper that had not come from his quill.

He grinned. The mage had written a letter with his pressed beneath and she’d clearly used a cheap, lightly weighted paper, which was understandable for someone who had been on the run without a financial benefactor for nearly a year. He’d noticed the state of her stationary when he’d received her correspondence, the paper had been so thin he was surprised her quill hadn’t gone straight through it, knowing the firm strokes she used in her freehand- like she commanded the ink and paper to do her bidding. With some care, he could have a copy of that letter. He shoveled ash from the fireplace and waited a moment for it to cool. He sprinkled the ash liberally over her forgotten manuscript and dusted it off carefully with his breath.

Like a dark demon, the papyrus’ past came to haunt the surface and Fenris, like a greedy glutton, read its secrets as his eyes twisted the ink from the ash and deciphered the jumble.

* * *

_H,_

_Things are bad, I won’t lie, but we have the support of several unexpected friends who continue to believe their job is to help us. At my insistence, your son has sought the counsel of one of these friends and he has informed me that while Francis has a long road ahead of him, he is clearly on the right path. He believes your son’s good heart will see him through- and trust me, he’s not one to mince words._

_I’ll be through L. at the end of the month after I’ve conducted some business outside the city. The Harvest Festival will provide ample cover for a quick visit. If you’d like to meet, hang the blue lantern at the front of your inn._

_Your son believes you can be trusted. If you’ve any friends concerned about their loved ones, I invite you to bring them to me provided you believe they can be discreet or can take proper measures to insure my safe passage out of Orlais._

_-H_

* * *

He quickly pulled his map from his bag and covered the small table with it. Hawke was going into Orlais? Was she mad or just suicidal? He’d selected the Frostback Mountains as a meeting place primarily because of their proximity to Orlais, where he suspected he’d readily be able to find help should the mage put up too much of a fight. But to actually traverse into the belly of the beast?

If she was determined to risk her life, he had to admit she at least picked her timing well. The Harvest Festivals were a week-long celebration in Orlais, inviting masked revelers to disregard wealth and station to mingle with each other in anonymity. Based on their current location alone, he was sure that Hawke would be unable to travel too deeply into Orlais by the time the Festivals began.

L… which city began with L?

He disregarded the smallest villages and farming communities. Marian would know that she couldn’t expect any sort of sizable crowd there and she’d stick out like a sore thumb, as her countrymen were prone to say. She’d also likely stick to the outskirts, not foolhardy enough to dare trekking too far into the Grand Divine’s territory. Templars had managed to keep their greatest hold in the Orlais. He estimated how far she’d be able to travel and skimmed the map until a small city along the Imperial Highway caught his attention.

She was headed to Lydes.

It was small enough so she’d have no difficulty finding this H character she was looking for and large enough that its festivities would attract the nearby smaller communities to make the journey… thus giving her a crowd to hide in. He gathered his few belongings and made his way to the stable. He tacked the horse again with fierce but gentle precision and saddled up, cantering away from Hawke’s footprints and toward the road. Now that he knew where she was going, the sense of urgency left him. She was gone for now but he would find her again. It was just a matter of time.

* * *

Weeks passed before he entered Lydes on the first day of the Harvest Festival, stabling Witchduck at the inn he’d taken just outside the city. His presence needed to remain undetected if he was going to find Hawke- the mage would run at the slightest sign of him. So he took painstaking means to ferret out where she may be, leaving behind his signature armor at the inn and donning an elegant dark doublet and simple tailored pants along with a mask so he’d blend seamlessly into the festivities. Fortunately, the Orlesian autumn was unusually cool so he did not have to fear overheating beneath the heavy fabric.

Orlesian festivals were renowned and reviled for their luxurious extravagance and he could see why. The celebration would go nonstop for a solid seven days- people would return to their homes when they were too drunk or exhausted and would return back to the party as soon as they slept, washed up and righted their clothing. All the shops had moved into the open-air market at the center of town, offering merchandise at ridiculously low costs and a wide range of foods and wines free for the taking. He’d never been overly fond of Orlesian wine; it was far too sweet for his tastes. If the Tevinters’ wine was made from the blood of elves, as Fenris had once quipped to Hawke, he was afraid to learn what fluids made up the Orlesians’.

He moved from the various food stands to study the market’s perimeter. In the darker corners at the market’s fringe, the brothels, too, had their best wares on display- men and women wearing their intricate masks and little else. He paused for a moment and watched one of the women pull a male hand to her heavy breast, the masked boy couldn’t have been more than fifteen; his shaking hand reached into his pocket to find the coin he pushed into the prostitute’s hand before she turned and led him into the dusty storefront behind. Technically, both the whore and the boy were committing crimes, the boy was clearly underage, but they could both plead ignorance and the guard would overlook the indiscretion. These masquerades were a security nightmare, literally every person he saw wore a disguise- even the guards. Fortunately, although they were masked, someone in charge of the guard had at least exercised enough good judgment to decide that they at least needed to be identifiable, so they were all forced to wear their armor- something many of them were grousing about.

He saw dozens of places where Marian could hide, most in plain sight. In addition to the face-obscuring masks, the elaborately embroidered cloaks and dresses bore strong resemblances to finer mage robes, which the mage would certainly be wearing if she were looking to blend in to this din. While the Orlesians could doubtless recognize the difference, Fenris doubted his knowledge of current fashion would allow him to do the same. He took stock of the market and noticed there were limited entrances into the city square as he pushed through the bustling crowd that had begun spilling in. This was where the bulk of the festival would happen. He needed to learn the lay of the land.

It was absolutely imperative that he find Hawke and immobilize her quickly. If she were to make it into this inundation, it would be nearly impossible to find her. He aimed away from the celebration, and began wandering the city, mapping the streets and alleys in his mind so he’d be able to navigate them later- yet another habit leftover from his days of running. As he strode over the cobblestones, he strongly considered asking the guard for help… but he couldn’t risk other Templars being brought in. If there were an increased Templar level, she’d certainly run, and he had no leads to follow from here. This could be his last chance to find her.

As dusk descended, he made his way back through town, passing the brothel again as he inspected the inns, finally finding one near the whores that sported a single blue lantern atop the post bearing the sign that simply said _Hugh’s Inn and Tavern_. This Hugh must have been the cryptic _H_ Marian had written to.

A smirk took his face as he entered the building, seeing a rather dapper gentleman bowed over a ledger and scrawling something in the margins. Fenris was unaccustomed to the working class dressing in fabrics of such rich colors and textures but it was customary in Orlais. He felt slightly out of place and frowzy even dressed as he was. The inn itself was pristinely clean with bouquets of flowers decorating coordinating vases throughout and an even greater number of potted plants. An imposing bar stood next to a swinging door that Fenris assumed led to the kitchen. Several tables sat empty, the patrons opting to eat and drink at the festival rather than the inn. Huge windows bathed the room the light from the city square and overlooked the crowds ambling outside.

“There’s quite a crush of people out there,” he commented casually to the man as he approached the counter and removed his mask.

The man jumped, looking clearly startled as he noticed the elf and spilled his inkwell onto the counter and barely missing his brocade vest, “You snuck up on me, messere!”

Fenris did not bother mentioning that he’d been standing in front of the man for nearly a full minute before he spoke, instead offering a quick, “I’m sorry. I did not mean to startle you. I was hoping to enjoy the quiet a bit myself.”

The man gifted Fenris with a wide grin. “I understand completely. It’s utter mayhem out there. Come, take a seat,” he said as he gestured to one of the empty tables.

Fenris thanked him, instinctively taking the seat closest to the wall and keeping his back to it. The man disappeared for a moment, allowing the elf more opportunity to look around. There was no separate entrance for the tavern, if Marian were to try and escape, she’d have to leave through a single exit if she used a door. Before he could give further thought to it, the man returned with a platter of bread accompanied by sapid meats and cheeses.

“I have nearly forgotten my manners, messere. My name is Hugh, I am the owner of this fine establishment,” he said with a short bow. Good, Orlesians were generally a bit too free with touching for Fenris’ tastes, even the men. It seemed Hugh understood that foreigners preferred a little distance and adjusted his actions accordingly.

“I am Leto,” Fenris offered, deciding quickly that his former name evoked more benign elfishness than the moniker Danarius had bestowed upon him. “I imagined you’d have more patrons right now with such a large celebration. I confess I did not imagine it to be this massive.”

Hugh cocked his head as he took a seat with the elf, breaking a loaf of bread and drizzling it with some sort of fragrant oil. “You’re not from around here, yes? Your accent… it is Tevinter, yes?” he asked, taking a small slice of the bread and consuming it.

He nodded and took a slice of his own. “I was raised in Tevinter but haven’t been back in over ten years.”

“Bah! Tevinter is a filthy place. My uncle took me there once on a business trip. But what am I saying? You’re an elf, I’m sure you know,” Hugh said knowingly before popping a slice of cheese into his mouth. “Well, my inn is full but my tavern is more or less closed during the celebration with all the vendors giving away food. But I appreciate the need for quiet, so what can I get you?”

Fenris stammered for a moment at the unexpected invitation before replying, “Nothing for me but thank you.”

“Nonsense! It is the Harvest Festival! As a foreigner, I do not expect you to know this but during the Harvest, it is only slightly more gauche to not offer food or wine than it is to refuse it. Only slightly. And nearly everything is gratis; it would be a poor celebration if we were not all willing to share the bounty. Even my rates are less than half of what they usually are. So what would you like? Wine? Ale? Mead?”

“Wine would be nice, I suppose,” Fenris offered, unsure how to interpret this strange custom.

“Good!” Hugh exclaimed as he rose to his feet and hurried to the bar, searching the cabinets and clattering bottles together. “My friend Jean is a vintner in town for the festival. His wine is unlike the typical Orlesian variety. It is light and airy but has a bit of the bite that you Tevinters like in your wine.”

“Tevinters are _not_ my people,” Fenris snapped.

Hugh looked genuinely abashed as he hurriedly apologized, “I am truly sorry, messere. It was not my intent to offend. I did not give a thought to whatever could have driven you from that wretched place- even if it was your home. Please forgive me.”

Fenris sighed, pulling his hated temper back under his control. He would get nowhere if he couldn’t keep his manners in check. “The offense is mine- I am being a poor guest. The Imperium is a difficult subject, if I may leave it at that,” he offered, grateful when Hugh nodded emphatically and brought a goblet of wine over. The elf gave it a taste and nodded his approval to Hugh; the wine was an odd combination of sweet and dry- still not to his taste but infinitely better than its syrupy brethren. “Tell me more about the Harvest Festival. Giving everything away for free seems like it would be bad for business.”

“Well, we have the people from all the neighboring villages coming through to celebrate. We dance, sing, mingle, celebrate. It is the height of celebration in Orlais!” He beamed, “And innkeepers and merchants are the only people who can make any money during the Harvest- although we all drop our rates considerably so everyone can partake. At harvest time, there is so much food and wine that everyone just gives it away. It is good advertising and good will. So we lower our prices by at least half to encourage more buying and flow more money into the city. I doubt it would work outside Orlais but it is a delicate system that has been in place here for years. It keeps merchandise fresh and the inns booked.”

It still made absolutely no sense to Fenris but it was just another strange Orlesian custom he’d just have to accept. “Could you perhaps squeeze in one more for the week?” he asked politely, hoping to procure a bed in order to watch for Hawke’s arrival.

“I’m so sorry, serah, but I’m fully booked, even my sofa and my cot have bodies on them. We cannot possibly fit in another. Have you tried Lafayette’s place outside of town?” the innkeeper offered, taking a long drink of wine before cutting another slice of bread for himself.

That was the inn he was currently stabled at, too far away to keep watch on Hugh. “Do you anticipate all your customers will keep their reservations?” he asked before taking a slice of whatever meat was before him. Some sort of ham, he decided as the flavors danced over his tongue.

Hugh shook his head sympathetically, finishing off his wine with a satisfied sound. “Everyone has already claimed their room, serah. Lafayette should still have a few beds left, though. So tell me, what is it that brings you to Lydes?”

Fenris smirked at the innkeeper with amusement, feeling the wine start to go to his head. “Why do you think I am not here for the festival?”

“Well, typically foreigners will travel to Val Royeaux or one of the larger cities if they want to see the Harvest Festival at its height,” Hugh explained. “Here, the celebration can dwindle a bit in the wee hours but at the capital, it is a non-stop carnival from beginning to end. I went there once as a youth- did not sleep for five days straight. That is where I met my beautiful wife, Colette.”

“You two could recognize each other during the celebrations?” Fenris asked incredulously. Between the masks and the elaborate clothing, he doubted he would have recognized himself if presented with a mirror.

“Ah, no,” Hugh looked slightly embarrassed. “We met and kissed on the last night of the celebrations and I tried to follow her home…”

“I found him passed out in the alley next to my mother’s hat shop the day after the festival ended,” a middle-aged woman laughed easily as she whirled into the room. She paused for a moment as she took in the strange markings leading down the elf’s neck before snapping her eyes back up to Fenris’, seeming to decide to ignore them as she continued, “Fortunately, we were both still half-drunk from all the wine and Hugh is so very charming. He even apologized to my mother before puking into her violets.”

“Colette,” Hugh groaned playfully, “you wound me!”

“I tease, I tease,” she smiled and smoothed her fingers over her husband’s hair tenderly. Fenris felt awkward witnessing such easy affection, unsure which direction he should look.

Hugh entwined his fingers with his wife’s and smiled at the elf, “Leto, this enchantress is my wife, Colette. Colette, this is Leto. He’s happened to come through town during the festival. He’s never seen an Orlesian Harvest before!”

“Oh! What a shame your first isn’t in Val Royeaux!” she languished with a smile. “Don’t you worry, you’ll have a good time here.”

Hugh scooted his chair back and rose to his feet. “If you could see to our guest, love. I’ve got to tend to a few things in my office. It was delightful meeting you, Leto. I hope you enjoy our city.”

“I’m certain I will,” Fenris replied. A twinge of guilt hit him as the innkeeper turned and made his way from the tavern and into the inn. These were good people and if he found Hawke, he’d have to arrest them. He found himself hoping that Marian wouldn’t show, the lies were beginning to feel a bit heavy.

Fenris assured Colette that he needed nothing and she left him to tidy the tavern before disappearing into the kitchen. A young girl appeared from the kitchen and flounced over with the wine, splashing a little on the table as she refilled his glass. She smiled nervously as she grabbed a rag from her belt of her apron and wiped the slick from the table.

“I am Brigitte. Hugh is my father. If you have need of anything, you let me know.” Her words were genuine and kind as she batted her eyes cutely at him, blushing slightly in the way that young girls tend to do. She couldn’t have been older than twelve and the shy flirting was adorable rather than enticing.

He gifted her a small smile back, nodding in thanks for the wine she’d brought before taking a long drink of it. “Well, your father was just sharing a glass of wine with me and telling me where I can stay the night,” he replied as he set the wineglass back on the table.

Brigitte perked up immediately with a small bounce to her step. “Why do you not stay here? We have warm meals, cold drinks and hot baths; and the festival is so close you could spit on it!” Her accent was considerably thicker than either of her parents’, her mouth lifting her soft palate for her soft trilling r’s and dropping her h’s entirely. He’d always found thick Orlesian accents to be a bit grating but had noticed in his journey here that the accent in its native setting was far less phlegmy and pretentious than it was when voiced by the displaced faux nobility he encountered in the Free Marches.

“Brigitte! Language!” came the loud rebuke from her mother in the next room. Brigitte turned red at the reproach and carelessly shrugged at the elf, smiling timidly.

Fenris nodded sympathetically at the awkwardness of youth before he took a long drink of his wine and replied, “I’d love to stay but your inn is fully booked.”

“Who told you that?” she asked guilelessly as she walked behind the counter and pulled out the huge ledger Hugh had been scribbling in when Fenris arrived. Brigitte beamed and called sweetly, “Mama, we have one more staying for the night!”

“We do not, Brigitte,” Colette replied easily as she flitted into the room with an elegant watering can and began watering the flowering plants. She shot an easy smile at Fenris and said apologetically, “We are fully booked, messere. I am sorry my daughter is mistaken.”

“It says here we have one room open! The last one on the top floor.”

Colette froze for a second, determinedly staring away from Fenris. “A man came in and took that one this morning,” she stuttered nervously. Her hands clenched around the handle of the watering pot so tightly he was surprised the wood did not splinter in her hands. Tension invaded her small frame as she struggled to look at ease- her movements now looking just slightly jerking and mechanical. He observed her subtle nervousness curiously with narrowed eyes. What was happening here?

The youth cocked her head thoughtfully, “Are you sure? It was empty when I cleaned it before lunch.”

“He’s…” the woman stammered, a look of panic twinkling in her eyes, becoming utterly still, “he’s coming later. He just reserved it for now.”

But hadn’t Hugh said that all the reservations had already been fulfilled?

His large elven eyes narrowed as he stole a long glance at Colette, who was stubbornly avoiding his gaze. The watering can began to tremble and Colette set it down on a table with a clang, jumping at the sudden loudness and spilling more than a little water.

“You did not write it in the ledger,” Brigitte pressed, innocently exposing her parents’ careful lies further.

Colette yanked a rag from her apron and began attacking the spill, focusing her attention on what must have been a wholly invisible spot of filth that she attempted to scour from the table. “I must have forgotten,” she averred with a soft quake in her voice.

“Silly Mama. That is not like you. You never forget to mark the ledger,” Brigitte hummed in her singsong voice, completely oblivious to the tension hanging between her mother and the branded stranger.

Colette shot a glance at the elf and froze again, a deer in the hunter’s sight. They regarded each other- Fenris with a curious inquisition and Colette with an anxious suspicion. The apprehension was clear on her face and her eyes darted down quickly; it confessed her sins to him. She _knew_. She knew he was looking for Hawke here.

Colette saw the realization cross his eyes and croaked out, “Brigitte, you should go to Emma’s now.”

The girl fluttered over again, twirling a lock of hair around her index finger as she hovered behind her mother. “But you said I was supposed to wait until after supper.”

“I’ve changed my mind. Go ahead and take a few coins from my purse. See if that mask you wanted is still at her mama’s shop.” Colette said quietly. Without any further prompting, Brigitte bounced behind the counter and carefully counted coins from her mother’s purse before bounding back over and thanking Colette a dozen times, gifting her mother with a kiss on the cheek for each, before bidding her goodnight as the young girl whirled out the door.

“There are free masks all over the festival,” Colette began awkwardly as she collapsed to sit with Fenris. “But she’s had her eye on one… her papa and I thought it was too expensive but it’s her first Harvest Commencement without us. Emma and her mama are taking her tonight. We have to work. She’s so excited.” The woman dropped her head with an expression approaching a wince as she said with a restrained sob, “They grow up so fast.”

Fearful tears welled in Colette’s eyes as she fidgeted her hands nervously and Fenris understood instantly that she’d sent Brigitte away so as to not see the altercation her mother was dreading. Brigitte was going to buy the mask she’d desperately wanted and celebrate the entire night then come home in the morning to find her family in ruins. Then the thought of their son, Francis, entered his mind… a dangerous mage who in his parents’ eyes would always be a scared little boy, his mere existence a taboo of which they could not even speak.

Templars had already shattered this family once, the elf realized. These were good people; and he would not be the one to destroy them again.

“When will she be here, Colette?” he asked evenly.

The woman’s shoulders began shaking as she choked out, “Sometime this week, messere. We do not know when or if she’ll even come.”

“Keep the blue lantern up.” He cleared his throat, regarding the woman’s avoiding gaze as she dropped her head pathetically with another sob and she painfully wrung her hands together before burying her face in them. Fenris, loath to touch but feeling it necessary placed a firm hand on her shoulder and slowly said, “I believe I will go to this Lafayette’s and take a room for the night. If you see her, I hope you will send word to me there. It is a Templar’s duties to protect innocent families from being duped by a mage’s lies.”

Her eyes shot to his questioningly, wide as saucers as a single fat tear fell onto her cheek. He nodded at her seriously, hoping he had conveyed his intention to leave their involvement in Hawke’s debacle of a rebellion out of his reports, as he pushed his seat back began heading down the hallway he’d seen Hugh retreat to. “I will bid my farewells to Hugh,” he finished. “I doubt I’ll recognize him at the festival.”

He sighed as he left the weeping woman and walked deeper into the inn to find the innkeeper, dismayed not to find the man on the first floor. The elf was more than a little irritated with the man as he turned to find the stairway and began climbing it- Hugh had lied to Fenris from the very beginning. Prejudice against elves was almost expected as a reason to be refused a room but not with the clear kindness that Hugh had shown him. There was only one logical explanation- both the innkeeper and his wife had known that Fenris was a Templar from the moment they’d seen him and begun lying at the start…

But there was no way Colette and Hugh could have known that just by looking at him, Fenris realized as he came to a full stop on the stairs.

He glanced down, confirming that his Templar pendant was still safely hidden beneath the thick doublet he wore, it was the only Chantry identification he possessed. No skirt that could have peaked from beneath his cloak, no crest’s outline that could be divined through cautious observation, all he had was the enchanted silver pendant that hung concealed flatly beneath his cloak. He was not even wearing the spirit hide armor. That could only mean one thing, he realized as he made his way to the third floor, bypassing the second entirely, and storming toward the supposedly empty room where he knew Hugh to be.

Hugh had been warned… and Fenris did not need to search for Hawke.

She was already here.

* * *

_End Chapter 2_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive thanks to BuriedBeneath and AmericanCorvus for their fantastic beta services.


	3. Flight of the Sparrow

Nemesis  
Chapter 3- Flight of the Sparrow

“ _I don’t need a hero.”  
Marian Hawke_

The last weeks had flown by in a mania of activities.

She’d run- run hard and run fast- through the twisted paths of the Frostback Mountains, nearly breaking her ankle once and her neck more than twice. Her numb feet tripped through frozen bogs and glacial swamps until she was convinced that she’d left that blasted elf behind her somewhere between the leafless, barren trees. However, his presence lingered in her mind, leaving her with a deep sense of unease that she doubted would pass anytime soon. Every time she heard the thunder of hooves clatter behind her, she sprinted from the road deep into the woods and would stay there for hours until she was convinced the danger had passed.

Each night was spent with Hawke buried in her thin bedroll and whatever leaves, sticks or twigs she could find to camouflage her hideaway and insulate her meager body heat. A fire would have been far too risky so when the sun fell and the night rose, Hawke settled herself in for another frigid, lonesome night with only her thoughts to keep her occupied. The woman who eventually emerged at the base of the mountains must have looked more like a feral animal than a human. Her hair was a mess of snarls and tangles, her nails either bitten down into short ragged stubs or broken deeply into the quick, bringing sharp jolts of pain whenever the exposed beds raked against any surface. Bites from various insects were also randomly spattered across every bit of skin she’d dared to leave exposed. She joked with herself that her haggard appearance would discourage Fenris from coming too near… but was unsure whether that would actually prove to be the case and unwilling to test the theory.

It had been too cold in the higher altitude to properly bathe. As soon as she felt the warm air on the plains, she found a frigid stream and stripped, scrubbing the dirt and grime away with a vengeance after washing her clothing with a meticulous mania. The rest of the day was spent in clean smalls. As far as she was concerned there was little purpose in dressing completely if nobody was going to see her. So she took a day to lay nearly nude beneath the bright daylight, filtered through the orange and green leaves. Autumn was nearly here and the trees were already beginning to shed their green summer coats. While her robes dried slowly, Hawke settled into the soft mossy earth and pondered the fairy floss clouds in the clear cerulean sky, taking her mind off of Fenris and the plight of mages for a brief afternoon.

Though much of her life in the last year had been under the stealthy cloak of moonlight, Hawke was still a creature of sunshine. Her body and mind innately operated better in the sun’s radiance- her mana regenerated more rapidly, her strength was better maintained and demons kept their distance. Her father had speculated that it was likely why she had such a proclivity for fire spells. She’d laid contentedly in her natural element, imagining the sun’s light penetrating her bones and driving all the residual cold away. All too soon, her clothing was dry and she needed to move again. The break, the bath and the freshly cleaned clothing left her feeling like herself again. She bid her oasis a quick goodbye and continued toward Lydes.

She passed through the Dales seeing neither hide nor hair of the snow-capped elf. An elven camp provided a brief stopping point and fortune smiled upon her. Merrill’s constant waxing poetic about her people granted Hawke enough working knowledge to persuade her way into the camp. The Dalish, while inherently mistrustful of shems, allowed her to trade with them provided she paid a considerable markup for their trouble. Finally ridding herself of a few of the various trinkets she’d acquired over her journey, the profits purchased a few foodstuffs from a surly shopkeeper. In the end, her pack was lighter and her purse was heavier but only barely. She couldn’t afford to trade much with the Dalish, not when they wouldn’t pay her a tenth of any item’s worth and overcharged her by at least half.

The roads summoned her once again and Hawke couldn’t be happier to depart the accusatory stares of the Dalish, grateful instead at finding herself in Lydes a full day earlier than she’d anticipated. Rather than lurking on the outskirts, she waited until nightfall and stole into the city, following the instructions she’d memorized until she found herself peering from the dim alley to a single white lantern, swinging nonchalantly in the breeze. The blue lantern was not yet aloft- Hugh’s Inn was not safe and she couldn’t risk entering the building. The man wasn’t even planning for her arrival until the morrow but she’d still hoped against all odds that perhaps he’d be ready for her tonight.

The city was painfully quiet as everyone succumbed to somnolence before the festivities went into full swing and sleep would not come. Knowing that danger could approach the suspicious woman in on the dark side street at any moment, she darted from the alley again and back to the outskirts of the town and took a room at the inn there. The innkeeper at Lafayette’s was a disagreeable letch of a man but after some quick bargaining, she acquired a room and a bath. She didn’t sleep, tossing and turning for hours upon the stiff mattress until she saw the sun peak above the horizon, but there was little she could do about it.

Some odd sense of foreboding had overtaken her and she couldn’t shake it- her past experience told her that these restless nights were always the harbinger of some upcoming trial. It irritated her to no end that her subconscious decided that she needed to face these ordeals while sleep deprived. The closest she could come to bringing herself into peace again had been the bath at the inn. The warmth and stillness of the water caused her to linger a bit longer than she’d originally intended but she emerged in the end refreshed and red-faced, if a bit wrinkled; the soak and some scalding hot tea adequately substituted sleep for the time being.

The city beckoned her. Various shops and stalls had lowered many prices considerably in honor of the festival but were still paying decently for trade. She exchanged the remainder of the trinkets she’d been holding on to, netting a tidy sum for her patience, before indulging in a bit of shopping. She lingered at a boutique specializing in protective robes and the proprietor steered her toward a gorgeous set of forest green robes. The robes were an exceptional set, she realized upon inspection, offering vast protection from physical attacks while following the fashions of Orlesian tailoring. Some sort of reinforced protective gossamer revealed hints of skin along her chest and waist and the deep green would offer her a bit of concealment during her treks on the steppes of the Free Marches. Finally, the rich silver embroidery hid pockets for smoke bombs and potions as well as several slots for enchantment.

She’d openly gawked when the shopkeeper named the price, unable to keep her jaw from dropping. “Fifteen gold? That’s it?” she stammered, inspecting again for a giant rip or a bull’s-eye sewn into the back of it.

He offered her a nervous smile, “This style is from two seasons ago. Orlesian women would not be caught dead in them now but they will think it looks adorable on you, I promise.”

Robes were meant to be armor first and foremost, and the craftsmanship on this set told her she indeed would not be caught dead in them- they’d protect her from that. That they happened to flatter her was simply a bonus. Adorable, she snorted to herself as she counted her money; Orlesians were a funny people, she thought as she plunked the coin onto the counter. The coin she’d saved on her new robes bought her a new pair of boots and a few books as well. Deciding that her shopping had been concluded, she elected to check on Hugh’s Inn again. The blue lantern was up, so she walked in guilelessly. The innkeeper’s wife- Colette, if her memory served her properly- immediately ushered her upstairs to an empty room on the third floor, somehow maintaining a silently casual but hasty demeanor.

The room was actually fairly spacious, possessing a bed that would rival the one she’d kept in Kirkwall in terms of sheer size. A large writing desk occupied the wall by the huge windows and a small private bathing area stood concealed by an elaborately carved screen. Hugh was clearly keeping her in the finest suite he owned and it was likely his intention that she be able to hide out in this space if Templars began searching the town. She was grateful for Hugh’s forethought; it made her life much easier.

The woman beckoned Hawke to make herself comfortable. Daintily, she lowered herself into a hard chair by the desk, facing her back to the wall; it was an odd habit she’d noticed from Fenris… it made perfect sense to sit that way if you were concerned that someone may attack you from behind.

For not the first time, she lamented that she’d never picked Fenris’ mind about the tactics that had kept him out of slavers’ hands in the years between his escape from that monster Danarius and their introduction. All she had were the memories of his tiny idiosyncrasies, of the elf refusing to sit with his back to a window or door, of him stepping over the traps that he’d set in his dilapidated mansion despite the fact he lacked any skill to disarm them, of his wide eyes sweeping along every crowd and surveying for every threat, of that odd gait of his which made him look like a snake ready to strike, of his distrust of mercenaries… Maker, she was practically a walking tribute to the elf’s paranoia.

Hugh joined her, interrupting her macabre thoughts with a savory soup and thick-crusted bread accompanied by a skin of wine. They ate and chatted extensively about his son, Francis, who had been struggling greatly against his own soul, having used a fair amount of blood magic to escape the eastern Orlesian Circle. The last time Hugh and Colette had seen their son he’d been engaged in a fierce battle of will against himself; Hawke hadn’t had a lot of time to explain what was happening to their son. It was an extreme stroke of luck that Hawke had actually been in town and overheard Hugh seeking advice “for a friend” from a Tranquil shopkeeper. She’d barely been able to smuggle Francis from the inn before the Templars stormed it. That had been during her first months on the run.

Francis had accompanied her to an apostate camp that had settled nearby. She’d sat with the young man and stroked his hand soothingly while he suffered under Carver’s watch, doing everything she could to aid the young Templar as he helped the mage clear the demons from his head- a daunting but achievable task. The screeching and wailing had shaken the entire camp but on the other side of the night, daylight awaited and Francis emerged scathed and weakened but whole. Sadly for Francis, his battle would never truly be over.

The mages trying to escape the Circle had been saved but at the terrible cost of opening a floodgate in the young man’s mind. Hawke and the other Templars could never be sure that he’d not surrender to blood magic’s call again. Demons would haunt him more savagely than his magical brethren, knowing that he’d already succumbed once. The first step, she’d heard, was the longest- every step after that was trivial. Once a mage practiced blood magic or bargained with some demon, only complete avoidance of the dark arcane arts would spare their souls but the temptation would never cease. If they continued to use it, if they insisted they could maintain control… well, it was a thin, downward slope and a mage could only tread the thread for so long before even a stiff breeze could knock them off.

But Carver had expressed hope for the boy. If he was hopeful, that could only be a good thing.

She conveyed those sentiments to Hugh, whose fat, grateful tears slipped down his cheeks as he knelt at her feet, grasping her hands and resting his head in her lap. A low blush crept over her cheeks at the intimacy of the position even knowing that there was absolutely nothing sexual about it. Her hand reached out to pat his head in an awkwardly comforting gesture before the man pulled away and rose to his feet, sensing he’d made her uneasy with his closeness.

“I’m sorry, Hawke,” he apologized with a twinge of embarrassment at his faux pas as he moved away. “I forget that other cultures are less inclined to touch.” He smiled at her forgiving nod and continued, “Are you planning on leaving this evening?”

She contemplated for a moment, her initial plan had been to spend as little time in the physical city as possible but with the Harvest, the risk of discovery was minimal. “I’d like to stay the night if it’s all the same to you,” she decided finally. “The bed looks quite comfortable and the ship in Cosazure won’t be going anywhere without me.”

Hugh beamed with such intensity she thought for a moment he’d outshine the sun. “You are free to stay as long as you please. I have a friend who is eager to meet you. She wants to inquire about her son.”

“Tell her to come by this evening. I’m rather exhausted and I’d like to take a few hours to rest.” It was the truth, the wine had gone straight to her head and the false energy she’d taken from the bath and caffeine was ebbing away at an alarming rate.

“Anything you need,” Hugh smiled kindly. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled for Templars.”

“Thank you,” she said before thinking to add quietly, “There’s also the possibility of an elf on the lookout for me. He has white hair and scars. Not battle scars, these are very distinct, almost look decorative- very easy to recognize. He’s a Templar as well. I escaped him before I arrived here.”

“I will let Colette know. We’ll keep you safe so long as you’re here. Sleep well, Champion,” he bade her quietly as he clicked the door closed behind her, locking it from the other side so she wouldn’t have to get up.

She stripped down into her smallclothes and curled up into the luxurious bed, amazed at how quickly sleep took her even with the bright sunshine coming in through the window.

Seemingly moments later, a hand clapping over her mouth jerked her violently from her sleep. It was dark and she was unsure if she’d been blindfolded or if she had slept into the night. Her fingers on one hand clambered against her impromptu muzzle while the others seized into the darkness, seeking something she could use as a weapon. When she began struggling, a hushed voice shushed her and she calmed instantly once she recognized the innkeeper’s soft tenor.

“He’s here,” Hugh whispered, uncovering her mouth when he was sure she wouldn’t scream. “That elf who has been chasing you. Calls himself Leto. He’s downstairs asking questions.”

Leto… that name ripped any doubts from her mind. The gravity of the situation washed over her as her eyes began to adjust to the darkness, making out Hugh’s dark form lurking at the edge of her bed. How had Fenris found her? Someone must have intercepted her communication to Hugh and alerted the elf. How many Templars were waiting in town? She had seen none but the masquerade meant they could be nearly anywhere. It wasn’t safe here- she needed to escape now.

“I need to leave,” she whispered quickly, throwing the blankets off without any thought to her near nudity.

“I know,” Hugh agreed as he averted his eyes, turning instead to light the candles in her room. Hawke threw on her new clothing at record speed, collapsing to the bed to lace her stiff boots when Hugh knelt in front of her, pushing a heavy pouch into her hands. “Here’s all the money we can spare and some food for the road. My horse is stabled in town- Buttercup, white with brown around her eyes, third stall on the left.” He reached into his shirt and pulled a silver necklace loose from his collar, a small shiny skeleton key dangling from the thick chain. He dropped the necklace into her palm and said, “Here’s my key. Take her.”

She shook her head, carefully placing the purse into her pack and said, “I can’t take your horse, Hugh.” The money and the food, she could justify taking, but the horse wouldn’t be able to travel with her back to the Free Marches. She offered the necklace back to Hugh and continued, “I can barely ride to begin with and she’ll never be allowed on the ship.”

His hands came up in a gesture of mock surrender as he refused to take the key back. “Don’t worry, she’s a gentle ride and she’ll come back here once you’re done with her,” he insisted. “She’ll give you distance from this place. You put your life at risk to come here, let us aid your escape.”

She bit back the words that wanted to spurt out, that in fact it was she who had put his family at risk by coming. This gentleman wouldn’t hear a word of it, she knew. So with a heavy sigh, she hung the necklace around her neck and said, “Hugh, if they threaten to hurt you or your family, tell them anything they want to know.”

“I will not betray you,” he affirmed desperately, slamming his hand down onto the bedside table and shaking his head violently in disagreement.

She sighed, placing her hand atop his. Her voice was calm and even, defying the worry she was experiencing, as she reassured him, “I have far more contacts than you know about. I’m begging you, put your family in front of me. I’m going to be fine… I don’t need a hero.”

Hugh dropped his head and regarded the floor for a long moment before he finally capitulated to her request with a small nod. “Tell my son we love him and Brigitte asks about him every day,” he beseeched her quietly, looking up at her with gentle, pleading eyes. He sighed again and pulled a small package from his pocket and gingerly offered it to the mage, “Please give this to my son. It belonged to his grandfather.”

“I will,” she promised with a final squeeze of his hand before she took the package. “Promise me you won’t do anything rash. Just get him out of here.”

Hugh nodded in understanding and made his way to the door. “I’ll come get you once he’s left. We’re going to smuggle you out through the brothel. Be ready.”

He opened the door and crept out. Fortunately, it wasn’t as though she’d ever really unpacked to begin with, so her meager possessions needn’t be retrieved. She hadn’t even closed her pack when she heard Hugh gasp, his weight suddenly pushing on the creaking door. She quietly threw her old robes into her bag and laced it shut with a tight know before waiting in silence for whatever would happen next.

“Messere!” Hugh could not conceal the surprise in his voice as he called at a slightly louder volume than was strictly necessary. “You frightened me. You really shouldn’t sneak up on people.”

Her breath caught when she heard the voice respond. “I apologize, your wife said I could find you here. I was coming to bid you goodnight, I think I will take a room at Lafayette’s for the night.” It was dark and throaty, a rumble that shook through her. It was Fenris; he’d found her. Another layer of fear slipped in as the dull realization fell over her, Fenris must have followed her here from Lafayette’s. She’d placed this family in inexcusable danger.

“Lafayette is a good man,” Hugh responded jovially. She buried Hugh’s gift for his son into her pocket and crept to her staff. “Tell him I sent you. He’ll give you a nice discount.”

She struggled to keep her breathing silent as she surveyed her possible escape routes. The door was off limits, that much was obvious. Hiding was a possibility but Fenris would conduct a thorough search of the room before departing and if there was a secret hiding place, Hugh would have hidden her within it. Fastening her pack on, her gaze fell onto the window. That was her only way out now, she realized and made her way silently toward it.

“It is much appreciated,” she heard the elf replied smoothly. “Is this your office? The view must be incredible to keep it so far from the entrance.” Staff in hand, she opened the window, listening for the sound of the festival below. She cursed fate for a moment, Hugh had given her the topmost room to avoid her running into anyone… neither had considered the possibility of a nighttime escape through the window. Fenris, actually, would have been an excellent person to consult when it came to life on the run- he likely would not have made the same mistake.

“Oh, no!” Hugh laughed but she could detect just a hint of nerves behind the bellowing sound. “Just another room, I’m afraid. This girl needed help with the lock on her trunk. I told her I’d take a look at it.”

“Your wife said this room was unoccupied,” the dark voice said. Hawke could hear Hugh’s gasp and the endless pregnant pause that hovered after. Fenris knew, she understood, that she was in here. This was just some sick cat-and-mouse for him.

“Messere,” Hugh bumbled, she saw the light from beneath the door move as the innkeeper shifted his weight from one foot to the other, “You can’t tell my wife. She’d kill me if she knew I strayed again.”

She didn’t hear Fenris’ response, too preoccupied with her getaway. Clasping her staff to her pack, she sat on the windowsill before pulling herself up to stand on the ledge. Clumsily, she hoisted her torso onto the low roof, fingers gripping frantically at the narrow ledge and feet scrambling to heft the rest of her body up. It felt like a small miracle that she managed to flop herself gracelessly onto the roof as physical strength had never been her expertise. The rooftop was shared with the two shorter adjacent buildings. If she could descend to the lower neighboring roof, she should be able to drop safely to the ground from there.

Unsteadily, she made her way to her feet and tiptoed along the shingles as she heard the door open and Fenris’ voice call her name. She froze, hoping the elf wouldn’t figure her to be stupid enough to climb out the window of the third floor. Quietly, she resumed her tiptoeing to the edge and sunk her body onto the lower tier of the roof but a single shifting shingle set her off balance and she landed heavily on the slope. Her momentum rolled her over the edge and plunged her body the rest of the way to the ground.

The ground crashed into her body with a dull thud and she hit it with a soft exhale rather than the heavy ‘oomph’ her body tried for. She was, miraculously, uninjured save for a jammed shoulder. Scrambling to her feet, she darted through the alley, her shoes slapping against the cobblestone as she passed from the dirt alley to the busy street. Dizzy from the fall, she made her way toward the sounds of the festival, dropping her staff behind a barrel and hoping she’d be able to return to it later. The crowd would make her harder to find. Her staff would accomplish the opposite.

“Hawke!” the elf’s dark voice shouted. She turned and looked back, seeing the elf poke his white head through the window she’d just escaped from. Time froze and they stood there like bastardized paramours, Fenris regarding her from his lofty perch and she on the ground below, looking up at him like some erstwhile suitor moaning a sonnet about the curve of his cheek. Her feet continued backing her away until she saw Fenris’ reach out to grab the ledge, seeming fully prepared to leap from the window after her.

She turned and ran, not even waiting to hear the elf collide with the ground and call her name again, shouting for her to wait. Her feet thudded in a tempo half the pace of her heart as she sprinted, wincing through the pain from her tumble. Soon the sound of her pounding footsteps was drowned out from the racket of the crowded festival and she careened into the din, pushing and shoving her way deeper into the crowd in the frantic effort to escape her pursuer.

Reaching forward, she ran her fingers beneath some anonymous woman’s chin and snatched the mask from her face, shoving the squealing lady bodily forward before she could turn to see her thief. The woman’s beau protested to Hawke’s back as she ducked further into the festal crowd. Pulling the disguise over her face as the drunken carousers cheered and danced around her, Hawke darted toward the center of the celebration. The full-face mask was pretty enough but it caught her breath and pushed the warm air back into her face, making her feel overly warm. The lights and the scents spun around her, intoxicating her until she realized she was hopelessly lost. The town looked completely different from the center of this crush. Where was the stable?

She caught sight of Fenris’ shock white hair above the crowd and took a moment to thank the Maker that he’d formed the elf to stand slightly taller than his brethren. She could tell by the subtle movement of his lips that he was cursing in Arcanum as he searched. She frantically tried to pull away when he staggered within feet of her but he did not see her, turning away from her instead to find the body that had pushed him. With a growl that was nearly inaudible over the chaos of sound invading her ears, Fenris raised the hood of his cloak over his snow white hair, donned his mask and simply… disappeared… right before her eyes.

Despite the crush of bodies around her, Hawke suddenly felt very alone, hunted by a man she could no longer see. For all the colors and light, she was stumbling through this massive crowd completely blind, oblivious to an imminent danger she could no longer locate.

A man grabbed her by the waist and swung her into a wild dance and she was helpless but to follow or be trampled over. The man spun her, rendering the world into little more than a cacophony of blurred color and noise. She broke away, unsteadily catching her balance before another body swirled her into more tight concentric circles. The smells of sweat and sweet alcohol encompassed her, making her feel dizzy and sick in the stranger’s embrace. She’d been alone for so long, this was too much to handle. Panic began to edge a sharp needle into her mind. In a last ditch effort, she shoved this new stranger away, staggering as she felt sweat begin to bead at her forehead.

Then she was caught up again in whatever line dance these Orlesians were engaging in. She couldn’t fight it, her abilities neutered under the heavy scrutiny of the crowd. The air she was breathing was too hot; the crush of the bodies was too much. The atmosphere was making her drunk. Her breath was coming in painful gasps and she felt bile beginning to rise in her throat. She was going to be sick inside this mask.

A hand caught hers and an ornate masked face ducked into her bleary vision. “Are you all right?” a male voice asked hurriedly in a thick Orlesian accent but she couldn’t for the life of her think of proper answer to the question. At her lack of response, he repeated, “Serah, are you all right?” She shook her head, recognizing too late that the man in question was wearing a guard’s uniform. Regardless, she felt her body being pulled against his as the man led her to a stone wall at perimeter of the crowd.

He pushed her back against it, pulling her head down and pushing something cool and wet on the back of her neck. “Take deep breaths through your nose,” the man said as he shifted her mask slightly, freeing her nose and mouth from the small openings to expose her to the slightly fresher air. “You’ll be fine. Just keep breathing. Good girl. In and out.”

She nodded and followed his instructions, the cooler air from beyond her mask setting her mind right. Her mental faculties clicked back into gear as she scanned the crowd again for Fenris. “I was in there and I got lost. My husband is looking for me,” she claimed with an affected weakly stammer. “How could I find him?”

“You’ll have poor luck locating him in this crowd. The only vantage point is up there,” he replied with a point to a platform overlooking the festivities. Upon it, standing with at least twenty guards was a lone figure in elegant black robes and a white mask. It was Fenris- it had to be. He was scanning the crowd but his eyes passed over her, missing her as just another reveler. Instinctively, she righted her mask, thankful he hadn’t caught the slip in her disguise.

Strong arms pulled her along behind him and she realized much to her chagrin that the well-meaning guard intended to put her up on the stage to look for her nonexistent husband. Quickly, she cheered, “There he is!” Almost at random, she pointed into the crowd, finding a group of men squashed together and gesturing to the tallest of them.

“ _That’s_ your husband?” the guard asked incredulously.

“For five years,” she beamed- well, she hoped she beamed. Seeing the man she’d chosen a little more clearly, she felt that she could have done better even only as her fictional husband. His greasy hair and heavy paunch did nothing for her. “Thanks!” she finished and made her way toward the strange man, feeling the guard’s eyes train on her as she approached him.

She slouched over, letting her head fall further into the crowd as she made her way to the perimeter of the crowd when she caught sight of Fenris again standing on a platform observing the festivities and, she knew, the exits. She’d have to risk drawing his attention to get out of this mass of bodies. This false husband of hers just might be her ticket out of here.

The man was probably a sailor or at least pretending to be one. She sauntered up to him and pressed her body against his, much to the man’s surprise. “Let’s go back to your place,” she rasped in his ear, taking on a slightly slurred artifice in her words, hoping her perceived intoxication would provide the necessary cover for why a young woman would randomly proposition a man of ill repute. It simply wouldn’t do if the guard watched her ‘husband’ reject her outright.

He shot looks back at his companions, like it was inevitable that some woman would throw herself at him. He clutched her close, cupping her breast in rough hands then dragging her from the thick of the celebration and winding them through deserted streets into a deep back alley, both of them stumbling as he clutched her against him and leaned against the wall before he pulled her mask off. His own mask met the same fate and his face was revealed to be rather average looking. Then he grinned, showing off what had to have been a lifetime of poor oral hygiene and clumsily planting his lips on hers. The kiss was sloppy and tasted of beer and something pickled in vinegar. The man’s tongue swept into her mouth and pressed in so deeply she feared for a moment that she’d gag on it.

She’d just managed to pry her head away from the man’s iron grip when a voice called from behind her, causing her to freeze. “This is a fine bird you brought to the party,” the man’s voice chuckled.

Her companion seized her by the hair and jerked her head back to his, his cold eyes staring at her lasciviously. “She is. Aren’t you?” he asked with no little malice. The air was thick and her heart started pounding again when she heard yet another voice behind her speak.

“I get her first.” The words came from the higher voice and were accompanied by the sound of a buckle being unclasped as her new companion shoved her roughly to her knees and began undoing his own belt.

“What? You fellows didn’t think to just buy a girl a drink?” She let out a joyless laugh before her expression went dour. “Walk away now and I’ll pretend this never happened,” she warned. Her threat was met with a strip of leather and a metal belt buckle whipping across the side of her face and the gushing feel of blood running down her cheek. “You sons of bitches,” she snarled as she brought her hand up to stem the bleeding, dismayed that the blood continued to ooze through her fingers. “You stupid motherfuckers,” she cursed them again and spat on the man’s breeches.

“Cursing? Sounds like someone needs to learn what a lady’s meant to do with her mouth,” came the sneering first voice from behind her once again while the man before her fumbled with the buttons of his breeches.

Maker, she really hated men sometimes. She could at least admit she had a really bad run of luck with them. Unable to move her head, her eyes assessed the alley. The alley was empty save for her and her unknown number of new friends; there were three voices but they could have merely belonged to the vocal ones. Her fist shot forward almost on its own accord, punching her immediate enemy squarely in the groin. He groaned and fell to his knees, his face turning a purplish red almost instantly.

She spun on her knees and groaned. Five. Five masked men ready to gang rape a seemingly helpless woman during one of Orlais’ most community oriented celebrations. They looked both wary and livid, clearly not expecting this supposedly drunken woman to actually fight back when the odds appeared to be so highly stacked against her. The Maker had an odd sense of humor but also an interesting sense of irony. Fortune had in its own odd way smiled down on her, as well. The man who had brought her here had made sure to get her away from the prying eyes of the festival before he attacked her…

And if Fenris was still on the platform, he wouldn’t be able to see what she was going to do next.

She steeled herself as the men closed in on her. In her opinion, there were only a few problems that a direct application of fire couldn’t solve in one way or another. She pushed the choking man back, fanning a small inferno to enflame the ground around her in a violent exploding circle- a spell she’d picked up from an apostate in Jader a few weeks ago. The man who had led her into the alley screamed in agony as he tried to extinguish himself but the sounds of the festival were too loud for the cries to summon help. The others, too, collapsed in earsplitting howls as their conflagrant bodies quickly succumbed into shock and fell silent. She held the spell, holding the blaze on her assailants while they writhed and burned. Within minutes, their scorched figures lay twitching violently on the ground, little more than char and residual synapses firing off at random.

They’d made it quite easy for her to justify her actions. In all likelihood, she could have used telekinesis to push them away and they probably would have left her alone. Then what? They’d go back to the festival and look for another mark to prey upon. It was better this way, she told herself even as her stomach turned; the smell of burnt flesh never failed to nauseate her, regardless of her penchant for fire. But as she surveyed the small massacre around she realized the words she’d spoken to Hugh earlier couldn’t have been truer.

She didn’t need a hero.

Movement tore her attention from the gruesome scene laid out in the alley. Her eyes caught another man- younger, likely a teenager- regarding her from heavily quaking legs. She rose to her feet and regarded him coolly, realizing him to be part of the gang she’d just defended herself against, probably a lookout. The youth’s shaking knees gave out and he crawled away from her, scuttling on his hands and knees like a crab before he turned and scrambled back to his feet. As he turned down a separate alley, he screeched, “WITCH! A WITCH!” at the top of his lungs over and over, the words and the boy both quickly fading back into the din of the City.

She turned from the alley and ran, knowing that she’d be unable to silence the lookout before he made it back to the festival. The noise from the celebration would only provide so much cover; people generally shut up when someone cried witch. Being away from the bright lights and crush of the festival allowed her to reorient herself. She ran toward the stables as though the Blight itself was on her tail, or at least a few members of the City Guard. The man who had pulled her out of the fracas had seen her face and watched her leave with that man, badly burned as he was now. She couldn’t risk being caught.

So now she was on the run from not only Fenris and an unknown number of Templars but also the City Guard and likely any friends of the gang that hadn’t been involved in her near rape. Maker, for once couldn’t things go right?

The Maker apparently decided to ignore her and a wrong turn before the city walls brought her to a lurching halt. An oversized cart inconveniently blocked the path and rather than maneuver over or beneath it. Shit, she was back where she started and the faint thundering of footsteps echoed in her ears. She turned and threw open the first door she saw. Most of these buildings had two entrances, if she could find the rear she’d make it onto the next side street and could try to make her escape from there.

Darting inside, she quickly realized the folly of her judgment from the sounds of panting that immediately surrounded her. The cart had been blocking off the brothel from the celebration… Maker, she had the worst luck sometimes. Or the best, she thought as she recalled Hugh’s words about smuggling her out through here. Was this the brothel he’d been talking about? If so, there had to be some way to get through here to the stables… or even better, out of the city entirely.

Regardless, she ran forward, knowing Fenris and the Guard could be only moments behind her. She slammed open the first door she saw, which was blissfully empty save for a naked man resting contentedly on the bed. Her entrance pulled him from his light slumber as he regarded the mage before him.

She realized quickly that there was no exit from this room and was turning to leave when the man’s voice stopped her. “Back for more, are you?” he smirked as his manhood sprung to life before her eyes.

Hawke for once couldn’t think of anything to say, unable to control the fierce blush she felt taking over her face as she averted her eyes demurely. So she quickly opened the door and darted into the hallway again, ignoring the man’s pleas for her to come back as she pulled open another door and peered inside.

An indignant squeal sounded from the feminine half of the copulating couple on the bed. The sudden odor of stale sweat and sex pillaged her nose. The masked woman was on her back and tied to the headboard but Hawke got the impression that she did not at all mind it as the man ignored their sudden voyeur and continued plowing into her, pulling the squealing woman’s legs up to his shoulders and grunting like an animal.

At least someone in that room had the decency to be embarrassed- it was disappointing that that someone was she. Looking around, she saw no clear exit, so started back into the hallway when the sound of a door crashing open pushed her back into the room. Loud male voices rang through the hallway calling, “Apostate, show yourself!”

“Spread out,” she heard Fenris call. “The boy said he saw someone run in here.”

“Bloody mages,” an indignant grumble sounded in the hallway on the other side of the door, “always ruining the parties, they are.” She backed away from the door, resigning herself to whatever fate had in store for her. This was the end of the line.

Everything comes to an end sometime.

A masked, half-nude man appeared from nowhere and grabbed Hawke’s hand. Her body was wrenched back as he dragged her into a closet, placing a gentle hand over the mage’s mouth as the sound of thundering footsteps darted around the brothel. When she began to struggle, he shushed her gently, as if to avoid spooking her.

“I’m a friend, Hawke,” he murmured in her ear. “Hugh paid me to get you out of here. Nod if you understand.” At her nod, he dropped his hands from her, letting her shift away as he turned his back and started fiddling with the wall. Silently, a panel swung open and revealed a hidden hallway. A strong hand fell on the small of her back, leading her from the tiny closet into the narrow passage. When the panel closed again, they were in nearly total darkness. Two strong hands grasped her again, one on her shoulder and one upon her waist, and guided her forward through the shadows.

“Where is she?” she heard Fenris shout seemingly right next to her. She looked up, backing away from the thin glass that separated her from the elf, who was steadfastly trying to avoid looking at the copulating pair on the bed as he questioned them. The man groaned loudly, giving Hawke the distinctive feeling that Fenris had inadvertently gotten himself involved in the man’s fantasy. Even in the dull light, she could see the elf go scarlet when he repeated his question and the man replied with an even louder groan.

Unmitigated disgust consumed Fenris’ face as he backed away from the couple, clearly not willing to play whatever game this man was trying to draw him into.

“He cannot see us. To him, this is a mirror,” the prostitute behind her offered when Fenris’ back touched the thin glass separating them. The prostitute gave her a tiny shove, trying to direct her away from that strange image of her lost lover and further into the tunnel.

“Kinky.” she whispered with measured sarcasm as he steered her through the dark passage. The gloom arched into her reaching fingertips as she pushed her hands forwards into the inky shadows.

“Some patrons want to be a little violent,” the stranger’s soft voice explained patiently. “Sometimes they use gags and we can’t call for help. Our bodyguards watch to make sure nothing goes too far.”

“Oh! Well that’s… utterly practical,” she replied, feeling a little foolish for a moment for forgetting the dangers of working in a place like this, especially considering what had happened in the alley not an hour before. Her foot caught something soft and dark that offered just enough resistance for her to believe it had once been alive- a rat, perhaps.

A light chuckle sounded in her ear, “Most reputable brothels have passages like these. It’s a dangerous world.”

That it was the truth, wasn’t it? She pondered that bit of wisdom as the whore led her through the maze, past countless rooms filled with people having sex in positions she’d never even considered. Fenris was still thundering through the establishment along with three other guards but it didn’t seem that any of them were asking questions any more; just bursting in, checking the closet and beneath the bed before running out again.

She paused for a moment, watching him tear through one of the empty rooms and wondering what his motivations were. She unabashedly stared at the elf who was so close yet so safely distant from her as he turned and regarded his own reflection, running a lyrium branded hand through his hair and suddenly looking very tired. Wearily, he leaned his forehead against the glass and closed his eyes as though the cool surface was calming his mind. If not for the mirror between them, she could reach out and touch him. But he stood there, a strange object of virtu sealed behind glass and forbidden to touch.

That kind of thinking wouldn’t get her anywhere, she realized and tore her eyes away from the elf before moving farther down the path until her hands touched another solid wall. The man behind her scooted her to the side and manipulated some invisible lever to open to panel.

The sudden light was nearly blinding. Two enforcers were playing diamondback and drinking ale and a third immediately entered the passage Hawke and this man had vacated- making rounds, she supposed.

The man, she didn’t even know his name, led her to a small door on the side. “Exit this door and turn right. The rear entrance to the stables is less than fifty paces on the left. Lafayette uses it when he’s visiting his mistress, so the guards won’t know about it. If you’re quiet, you can have several hours before anyone notices a horse missing.”

She nodded her understanding. “I understand. Keep right and look left. Use the back door.”

“Good girl,” he smiled at her with straight white teeth and full lips. “Hawke- a word of advice before you go. If you ever find yourself in dire need of assistance, check the brothels. You can pay us for more than sex and most of us have traveled a fair bit as well. And many of the madams will aid a woman in peril just as a matter of principle.”

“I’ll remember that, thank you for your help…” she began to supply his name but remembered too late that she did not know it, trailing off stupidly before finishing, “I suppose it’s best I don’t know your name.”

He smiled at her again and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, “Good luck, Hawke. May the Maker’s will guide you through.”

“And you,” she replied before stealing out the door and into the dark street.

She followed the prostitute’s instructions, using Hugh’s key to let herself into the stables. Buttercup was exactly where Hugh had told her. While the gentle creature didn’t look like a racehorse, she certainly looked healthy. Hawke promised herself she’d take good care of the mare as she readied the horse for the final chapter of her horrible night in Lydes.

“Hawke,” a voice whispered loudly. Marian spun in panic to face an old woman. She eyed the crone wearily but the woman approached slowly, the mage’s staff extended in her withered hands. “You dropped this, serah.”

“You have my thanks, ser,” she said cautiously, taking her staff from the crone’s hands. “I know you risked a great deal to bring this to me. You should return home before someone sees you here.”

“Hugh confided to me that you were here. I was going to the inn to meet you when you ran into the Harvest Festival. I have a son, serah Hawke. He was in the Ferelden Circle. His name is Cain Bannon.” The old woman’s voice shook as she blinked tears from her eyes as she asked, “Have you seen my son?”

Hawke closed her eyes for a moment, scanning her mental files for a Bannon or a Cain. She stumbled across one, a Cain she’d met at a camp in the heartlands; a gentle man with furious red hair- so red he’d looked like someone had set his head ablaze. She couldn’t recall where he was from but the hair would be confirmation enough, so she asked, “Red hair? I mean, _really_ red hair?”

The old woman nodded her head and let loose joyful sobs, stumbling forward to embrace the mage. The woman, the matriarch Bannon she presumed, clutched the Champion close and buried her face in her breasts, shoulders heaving with relieved tears born of nearly a year of worry. Hawke brought her arms around the old woman, comforting her against the onslaught of emotion and glad to bring good news to these inquiries for once.

“He’s in the heartlands,” she recalled for the weeping mother. “He’s got a girl in the camp with him, Renate I think. She might be pregnant now- they wanted a baby.”

Hawke clutched the woman close, the mother’s question for once bringing her happiness as well. Too often, she’d not seen their children- nearly a confirmation of their deaths at this point- or she knew them to be dead, having seen it or heard of it during those nights when she’d join the apostates around the campfire and they’d drink to honor those they’d lost. On occasion she would silently tribute a drink to Anders; not drinking to the man he’d become but to the man she knew he must have been at some point- a playful scamp who wanted freedom to kiss pretty girls and shoot lightning at fools. She drank to Fenris often. Even though he’d revealed himself to be alive, she didn’t foresee that changing anytime soon. He would always be lost to her.

The mother Bannon pushed a signet ring into Hawke’s hand, closing the mage’s fingers over it. “I’ve seen to it that the elf’s horse has thrown a shoe. It should buy you some time but you have to go. If you see my son again, tell him we love him and him this,” she beseeched. “It’s yours until you find him. It has powerful protection wards on it. You could be bitten by the High Demon and not feel its teeth.”

While she doubted such lofty claims she nevertheless slipped the ring onto her thumb, pleased that it held onto the digit. “Thank you and you have my word, ser Bannon. I will return this to your son.”

“Maker bless you, child, through these terrible times.” The woman adorned her cheeks with frantic kisses before pulling away and fleeing into the night.

Hawke finished readying Buttercup, tacking the mare quickly before hopping astride and easing the horse into a canter out of town. She made a mental note to inquire about anyone moving through Jader who could visit the Villemarek camp; hopefully, she could find someone to pass on Cain Bannon’s ring. If tonight had taught her anything it was that she needed to stay far away from Orlais so long as this war raged on.

That first frantic night ride out of Lydes she gave the poor horse no rest, feeling guilty about hauling the gentle mare from her slumber and riding her hard along the unforgiving road until the sun rose and then set again. It wasn’t until that next night she finally tethered Buttercup to a tree far from the path and gave herself a chance to breathe. The cool night sky beckoned to her and she sat atop a flat rock, trying to calm herself enough to sleep. The stars in the sky twinkled innocently above her, completely unaware of the unspoken horrors that were being perpetrated across the earth below.

A single star streaked a fleeting path across the sky and plummeted from its rightful place in the heavens. Impulsively, Hawke wished upon it- a habit she’d had since the day her father had taken her away from her mother and the infant twins to the coast of West Hill in Ferelden to watch a star shower. He told her that each star that fell granted a wish to those who saw it. Nearing thirty, Hawke hadn’t stopped wishing on every star that fell before her eyes. But her youth had manifested capricious wishes of wealth or kisses from boys who thought her too young or awkward and she felt that if she continued in this habit as an adult her wishes should reflect some amount of maturity complementary to her age.

It angered her that the first wish that came across her mind as she contemplated the dying star wasn’t that of world peace or a resolution to the Circle crisis but of a desperate desire to travel back in time to the fleeting days before Anders had set his terrible course; and to stay there forever with Fenris in a protective cocoon in time, insulated safely from whatever past they had or whatever future that may befall them… when they’d both believed that their affections could simply be enough.

Furious hot tears washed down her face as she scolded herself that wishes were for children. Even the stars themselves were betraying her now. Her sleep was restless and those expiring stars haunted her until she woke unrested and continued on her path again.

Three days later she trotted into Cosazure and dismounted Buttercup, feeding her a hefty bag of oats before stabling her outside town. Her first priority was easily accomplished when she found a merchant willing to escort Buttercup back to Lydes for a sum of coin. The journey had proven the steed a fine specimen and while she did not doubt the horse’s ability to make her way back to Lydes alone, Hawke felt it unfair to put the animal through any sort of hardship after she’d delivered her rider so hastily from her Templar enemies. The man walked away with Buttercup and a more than generous amount of coin to tend the mare, Hugh’s insistence that Hawke borrow something as valuable as a horse made her only more responsible to ensure the mare returned to him in excellent condition. Promising earnestly to groom Buttercup twice a day until he reached Lydes, the merchant led the horse away, doubtlessly pondering his good fortune at getting paid two gold to ride a horse to the nearest city.

With that settled she veered deeply into the port town and hit the nearest tavern, drinking a pint in the darkest and most dismal corner she could find as she waited patiently. She drank an ale, cursing that fate rendered her incapable of doing much more than drink in this dank depressing hovel in the middle of nowhere. But her tongue was stayed by the bitterness of drink and soon into the dregs of her mug, the lightheadedness of intoxication’s onset had her head floating lightly above her shoulders as her scowl at her inconvenience gave way to an amused grin as she contemplated how royally pissed off Fenris must be at her.

Surely enough within the next hour after she’d batted away the advances of men both nearly half and twice her age, a pants-less Isabela came swaggering from the rented rooms in the back with two men panting like dogs behind her as they pawed and mooned over the exotic Rivaini. Little had changed about Isabela in the time since the Gallows, the pirate still indulgently engaging in promiscuity and caprice at each and every opportunity. Her clothing was still scandalously negligent and she strutted about like she hadn’t a care in the world.

Her latest conquests held her fleeting attention until her eyes fell upon Hawke. Upon seeing her friend’s familiar face, the captain discarded her miniscule harem, kindly ordering them away as she traipsed over to collapse heavily into the chair opposite the lonesome mage. Her dark face lit up as she signaled the serving girl for two more pints, ditching her latest bed partners with no hesitation despite their half-hearted protests.

“Finally! I thought you’d never get here!” the pirate sighed with no little exasperation. “So we’re heading into Cumberland in the morning?” Isabela huffed impatiently as the bartender took his time preparing the mugs of ale, dramatically tapping her fingers against the tabletop in an effort to annoy the man into complying with her request.

The man seemed to understand that drawing the ire of the Rivaini was ill-advised and sent the drinks over post-haste. Hawke took her pint from the bumbling waitress, taking a long drink from it before regarding Isabela with a simple, “I don’t know.”

Isabela arched her back lewdly as she regarded the mage with narrowed eyes. “What do you mean you don’t know, Hawke? That was the plan,” she muttered, scrutinizing her for any tell that might indicate what had changed.

A heavy sigh left the mage, knowing that this conversation was inevitable and decided to go ahead and get it over with. “The Templar-Captain I met in the mountains was Fenris,” Hawke shamefully confessed. “He found me again in Lydes- I barely escaped. I’m not sure that he isn’t currently on his way here.”

“It must have been some incredible sex for him to chase you that far,” Isabela quipped with a broad smile until she saw the nervous blush spread over her friend’s face. Her grin abruptly fell and her striking face was overtaken with a look of deep concern. “Oh, Hawke…” she breathed with much hated pity, pity she hated to give nearly as much as the Chantry fugitive hated to receive. “Are you all right?”

“I’m perfectly fine, Isabela,” she retorted impatiently. The mug beckoned to her, so she took a long drink from it before setting it heavily back down. “I’m just worried at how far he’s willing to chase me.”

Isabela’s eyebrows arched dramatically and she downed a deep gulp of her own ale. “And you’re running?”

“Of course I’m running!” Hawke could hardly believe the Rivaini had the audacity to even ask such a question.

“You don’t wonder at _why_ he’s chasing you?” the pirate pressed.

“He’s a Templar now, Isabela,” Hawke reminded her with no little exasperation and a roll of her eyes. “He made his intentions for me perfectly clear. The sex just happened.” She finished with a dismissive wave of her hand, feeling the alcohol render her movements a little looser than they normally would have been.

Isabela shook her head quickly as she drank from her mug again. “You and Fenris don’t just have sex. You’re both utterly incapable of it. You cannot think that it meant nothing to him.” She finished her declaration with a smug look of self-approval, like she’d enlightened her companion to some forbidden secret and the world would be better for it.

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Hawke muttered bitterly as she slid her empty mug across the table and gestured to the serving girl for another.

Isabela sighed and dropped the subject, likely seeing there was no point in pursuing it with Hawke. “So where do you want to go?”

Good, they were back to business. Hawke started, “I feel like we need to scrap the plans for Cumberland now. If Fenris makes it here, he may know we’re headed there next.”

Isabela sighed disappointedly as she warily eyed the mage. “I can’t change my course, love. I’ve already pissed off enough merchants by waiting here so long. I may be able to detour and drop you off in Val Chevin,” she offered. As irritated as the declarations were, Hawke understood. Isabela was helping the mage rebellion in the only way she knew how, by operating her ship as a discreet ferry and funneling her limited funds to the cause every chance she had.

Hawke shook her head quickly at the suggestion. “I’m too close to Val Royeaux as it is. Could we leave from Cumberland to somewhere else?”

“Not without taking port for at least a week,” Isabela replied. “I’ve got half my crew changing out there. Most of their replacements aren’t slated to arrive until the end of the month. That’s too long for you to wait if you think he’s coming behind you. He won’t have to wait more than a few days to find another ship here, he could be on one within a day of us leaving.”

“Perhaps if I moved the moment we made port…” Hawke sighed disgustedly and drank her ale once more. “Who am I fooling? I won’t be able to return to any of the camps so long as he’s chasing me. I can’t put them at risk.”

“You’re far too sacrificial,” Isabela chastised her gently, reaching out to take the mage’s cold fingers in her own. Hawke heard a few catcalls from the patrons of the bar but she refused to pay them any mind. This kind of simple contact had been denied to her for far too long. She constricted her fingers around the pirate’s, thankful that the Rivaini had no longer had designs on talking Hawke into her bed.

“It’s not their skin I’m saving; it’s my own. Trust me, with everything that’s happened with Anders…” Hawke trailed off, shutting her eyes against the thoughts of the former Grey Warden before powering onwards. “The mages need a unified front if we have any chance of surviving.”

“You can’t blame yourself for Anders.” Isabela’s smoky eyes went soft and sad again. It was unusual to see the pirate so doe-eyed and earnest but she’d held a certain fondness for Anders as well. The apostate healer had won her friendly affection with his fierce belief in freedom… but the flames of the exploded Chantry had burned something inside the older woman as well, forcing her to realize that not everyone should be free.

Hawke remained mute at Isabela’s affirmation but the sailor remained silent as well. They sat in disagreeable peace for a few moments before the mage broke the silence with the simple question of, “So what do we do?” She didn’t even want to think about Anders, much less talk about him.

The pirate sighed, accepting Hawke’s skirting as she replied, “I know the captain of another ship at the docks right now. He’s taking off in the morning. I can get you onto it. It’s a merchant ship stopping in Wycome, Seere and Seheron before swinging into its final port.”

Hawke followed the ship’s route in her mind and realized the ship’s logical conclusion. “Minrathous?”

“Minrathous,” Isabela’s eyes twinkled maliciously as she confirmed the destination darkly. “You’ve got to admit, if you don’t want the elf to follow you that’s the place to go. Fenris won’t put a foot in Tevinter. If he thinks you’re headed there, he’ll have no choice but to give up.”

“You’re certainly right about that,” she trailed off, worrying at how furious Fenris would be when he learned where she’d gone. If there was a way to drive a final nail into the coffin their relationship was buried in, this was undoubtedly it.

But did she have a choice? The elf was chasing her and hadn’t displayed any signs of faltering. Despite her insistence to Isabela, Fenris’ intentions were not entirely clear. He could be searching for her to make things right… but that scenario seemed vastly unlikely given their circumstances and the consequences of misjudgment on her part would be nothing short of disastrous. Once again, it was her hated task to view the situation objectively and ignore that sickening organ in her chest that pumped this terrible doubt throughout her entire body.

“Talk to your friend,” she said, feeling that terrible numbness grip her pounding heart and squeeze the lifeblood from the delicate organ as surely as she’d seen Fenris do the same. “Get me on that ship.”

Isabela nodded grimly. “How far are you going to ride it?”

Hawke ducked her head in embarrassment and replied, “All the way to Minrathous.”

Isabela’s head snapped up. “Hawke, you’ll be at sea for months,” the pirate said hastily, trying to dissuade her… but it was already too late. “You’re looking at half a year at least to get there and back. That’s a lot of time to waste on running away from a gorgeous elf that you could probably just talk to.”

“I tried to talk to him, Isabela, and he nearly killed me,” she replied, blinking a bit of wetness from her eyes. “And I already had plans to go to Minrathous. This just… speeds up the timeline a little bit.”

“What the Void are you planning to do in Minrathous?” Isabela asked incredulously.

She managed to repress a small sniffle and forced a wink at the pirate in hopes of making light of the situation. But at her companion’s softening gaze, she knew she’d failed in her task. Hawke forced out a mischievous smile and finished, “I couldn’t possibly spoil the surprise.”

“Well, if Fenris is on your tail it’s probably best that I don’t know. I never wanted to be on the receiving end of that magical fisting torture thing he does,” Isabela conceded. “Alright, I’ll get you on that ship if you’re sure that’s what you need me to do. It’s leaving out tomorrow morning at first light.”

“I’ll be there,” she murmured into her mug as Isabela sighed wearily and stood to procure her space on the Minrathous-bound ship. Hawke finished her ale and signaled for another, hoping the alcohol could drown the sinking feeling that something terrible was about to happen again. Minrathous was calling her and she had to go.

It was the only place she knew Fenris wouldn’t follow.

* * *

_End Chapter 3_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to AmericanCorvus and BuriedBeneath for helping me put this out.


	4. Songs From Those Left Behind

Nemesis  
Chapter 4- Songs From Those Left Behind

“ _Ah, the majestic cactus awakens!”  
Isabela_

Fenris stood in the middle of the dense crowd at the Orlesian festival and searched for Hawke, cursing extensively as he saw no sign of her among the mass of bodies. However, he had to commend Hawke for her daring escape; he never would have taken a room that high from solid ground but it was precisely that sort of wildcard behavior that had kept her clear from the warpath of the Grand Divine’s wrath. This strange near-suicidal range of tactics had served Marian so well he’d simply come to expect them.

After all, Hawke’s luck was the stuff of legends- so potent that even Varric had refused to play Wicked Grace with her, stating that the Maker clearly felt the dwarf deserved punishing whenever she went all-in, then with the cards on their backs would reveal her terrible hand before she inexplicably drew an unlikely flush or some similar trumping hand. The dwarf and Isabela had both on more than one occasion pinned her down and searched her for hidden cards, prompting hysterical fits of giggles while the mage tried to bat their groping hands away. She never drew the best of hands but more often then not somehow managed to hold cards better than her adversaries. That sort of maverick luck had introduced them and kept them together but carefully apart for six long years.

His knees ached from the leap he’d taken and the dark suspicion that he could be exiting his youth nearly overtook him for a moment when an unexpected violent shove nearly took him to the ground. He spun to face his attacker but upon his attempted confrontation, his supposed offender melted back into the crowd with a dark shout about the filthiness of elves. Such a prejudice was to be expected but he had never encountered such an anonymous, frightening wrath before.

The nature of the crimes likely to be perpetrated in this enduring masquerade had him extremely concerned for Hawke’s safety. Thus his frantic search continued. Everything was a maddening symphony of color. Rich reds, decadent blues and vibrant greens swirled around him, each accompanied by an ominous concealed face. Anonymity hung over the celebration like a dark cloud, hiding the identities of the revelers from him. Naturally, he’d been correct- it would be nearly impossible to find Marian in this crowd. He stumbled through, sliding his hands behind the smalls of noble backs to guide them from his path while he pressed forward, sweeping his furious eyes across the crowd and cursing in his native tongue, letting the familiar syllables still his mind as he sought out the retreating mage.

Another arm shoved him and he spun to defend himself only to find the bodies closing in like a wave before he was completely overwhelmed with the crush once again. A scowl fell over his face as he contemplated his options before he dropped the mask over his face and pulled up the hood of his robes, falling into the heavy crowd just as surely as she had. If he couldn’t see Marian then he’d not allow her to see him either- let them both be ghosts to one another.

More time in the square left him more disoriented than before and, looking up, he saw a vantage point where he’d be able to observe the crowd without being crushed by it. He made his way over and after displaying the Templar insignia to the on duty officer, managed to make his way to the uppermost platform, looking down on the crowd as he tried to divine Marian’s robes from the mass of people. The dim light in the alley had only told him that her robes were no longer the blazing scarlet he’d seen her in last but he’d been able to make out aspects of the various cuts in the fabric. One of the guards presented Fenris with a simple question at the Templar presence in Lydes and the elf responded with steely silence until the man left him alone with a muttered curse.

He didn’t need to answer to the Guard and so he’d stay his tongue.

Wide eyes continued sweeping the crowd but his efforts were met with no success. Regardless, he continued searching until a rush of guards moved beneath him. He leaped from the platform and followed. His stomach started flipping violently, knowing that mayhem tended to follow the spirit healer. Dashing forward, shoving all others aside as the guards moved to allow him into their ranks, he bolted toward the sound of panicked screaming. A young blonde man sat weeping on the ground as two guards patted his back comfortingly as they questioned him.

“She burned them,” he stuttered in shocked disbelief, rocking back and forth and hugging his arms around his own narrow waist. “It was just fun but she burned them alive.”

Instinctively, he knew it had to be her. The mage was no stranger to burning people to a crisp but never without provocation. This matter would have to be investigated once she’d been recovered. He lowered himself into a crouch and firmly announced to the shaking youth, “I’m a Templar from Starkhaven’s Circle, where is the apostate?”

“She… she burned them. Laret… Jean… she killed them all,” he repeated again. Being in closer proximity to the young man, Fenris noticed the tears and snot streaking down his young face and, more importantly, the gang tattoos that decorated his forearms.

“Which way did she go?” Fenris urged gently. At the boy’s unresponsiveness, he took the younger man’s chin and forced their eyes to meet. “Where is she?”

“You’re looking for a woman, right Messere?” another voice called from the opposite end of the alley. A boy emerged, looking every bit a street urchin in his rags.

Fenris nodded quickly as he shifted his attention to the informant. “A dangerous apostate,” he answered. “Have you seen her?”

“Might have,” the boy replied and cracked an opportunistic smile. “I might need a little something to jog my memory, is all.”

The elf reached into his purse and pulled out a sovereign, all but flinging it into the boy’s face. If he had more time, he’d have forced the answer out of the boy but as it stood, Hawke could be in real danger and he needed to locate her as quickly as possible.

The boy’s eyes twinkled as he regarded the coin in his hand, testing its integrity with a bite from his teeth. “She ran into the brothel,” he offered quickly, taking his ill-gotten coin and adding, “Whatever he says, those men deserved what they got.” Then the youth was gone, retreating back into the shadows lest his good fortune change.

“Watch him,” Fenris ordered the two guards with the blonde as he began running toward the whorehouse. Shit, the brothel of all places. He wondered what the Blight Hawke was thinking as he became aware of three guards surounding him through the winding streets. Heavy plated boots unceremoniously kicked the front door down, leaving Fenris to follow them in. Squeals of both sex and shock resounded through the building as they began searching, leaving Fenris to wonder dumbly what he could possibly hope to do if he managed to find her.

The patrons and employees of this fine establishment appeared completely disinclined to assist, so he used his training and the lyrium to reach out for her. He felt her. He couldn’t explain exactly how he knew it was she but he sensed her magic, felt it tickle along the brands along his skin and smelled it through the dense bouquet of sex and leather in the air. It was her magic’s own strange aroma- the same he’d encountered the night they met, the same from the parchment he still carried in his pocket, the same he’d enveloped himself in at the cabin where they’d met so recently. He smelled her in the brothel, present at that very moment. She was there…

And there was nothing he could do- not without revealing her to the guards.

He dragged his hand though his hair and took a long look at himself in the mirror, silently cursing that he couldn’t tear the building apart to find her. So long as the guards were there, he was paralyzed to truly search for her. His head fell gently against the glass and he closed his eyes, breathing her in and unable to divine exactly where she was but feeling her magic hum along the thick lyrium in his veins. Her scent was near but it meant nothing so he stayed there for a long moment, cursing at himself as he felt her magic slipping farther away until it receded from him entirely as she escaped.

He remained with the guards as they tore through the brothel, calling for her to surrender herself and refusing to tell them that she was already long gone from this place. They inspected the brothel from corning stone to floor plank in search but were eventually forced to give up on the search, returning back into the alley where Marian’s attack had originated. For the first time, he truly witnessed the aftermath of the brutal assault his mage had perpetrated against a small group of thugs. To say the bodies were burned alive was an understatement. He’d seen funeral pyres make a less thorough job of a corpse. This sort of excess had been the result of malice.

One guard, Leopold, had seen Hawke depart with one of these men. When he’d seen the others follow after, he’d summoned other guards to check on the suspicious and dazed woman. They’d intercepted the lookout, huddled in on himself and screaming like a child about the witch before the Guard found the smoldering remains of the burned gang just outside the back entrance to an elegant hat shop.

A single mask lay cracked and broken on the cobbles, crushed beneath what had to have been pounding feet with its face elegantly painted and mouth in a permanent smirk, mocking him. His brows furrowed when he came upon the five burned bodies Hawke had left behind in her escape, ignoring the charred corpses in lieu of focusing on the three belts that were found lying next to them, barely singed from having been removed from the bodies prior to their immolation. It confirmed the urchin’s assertion- these men had tried to rape Marian. It had been the last thing they’d ever done.

He felt no pity for them, was even grateful that Hawke had killed these men before they could hurt her or anyone else. Unfortunately, however, it had left him with a rather large mess he had to clean up.

“You’re a Templar, correct?” one guard approached and asked. “Do you know anything about this?” Before he even had an opportunity to answer, another guard approached.

“Was it blood magic?” he asked quietly as though the question itself could make that terrible possibility a reality.

Fenris ducked down to check. If Marian were using blood magic, it would change the entire game. He was unsure if he could forgive that from her; it could have been the end of his affection, he feared. Regardless, he surveyed the scene as objectively as he could. The alley was devoid of stray blood. No knife spatters on the wall, no inexplicable pools on the ground. Finally, he took a deep breath and used his hand to waft the air surrounding the bodies toward his trained and sensitive nose. The scent of the embers of fire was revealed to him- not the strange copper, almond and rancid meat scent he knew to be blood magic.

He huffed a great sigh of relief when he did not find those odors- her soul was intact for the time being. As a Templar, he learned that two of those scents meant a likelihood of blood magic; three meant a definite presence of it. These bodies emanated none of them. He’d been able to recognize blood magic’s stench since well before he began his instruction in Starkhaven but the education of the past year rendered him capable of identifying it with a near pinpoint precision.

“No,” he replied authoritatively as he turned back to the nervous guardsmen. “There was no blood magic here.”

“But she’s still a murderer,” another guard affirmed gravely.

“But the belts,” Leopold retorted, “these men meant to…”

“Hurt her. She was defending herself,” Fenris finished for him. “She must have been terrified.” In all actuality, he doubted Marian feared for her chastity or her life. If the gruesome scene before him was any indicator, she’d not needed to exert much energy to dispatch these bastards… clearly not enough to inhibit her flight from the scene.

“Well, what were they to think?” an older guard asked gruffly, puffing himself up appropriately. “Young, drunk woman comes onto one of them, willingly follows a stranger away from the safety of the festival…”

“They should have thought that she wanted to get fucked by one of them, not raped by five,” another guard, this one blissfully female, retorted angrily. Fenris could tell by the riled countenance of the woman that this was an argument these two had engaged in before as she approached furiously and silently dared the Templar to argue with her.

“Indeed,” Fenris agreed quickly, sensing this woman was not one he should make into an enemy. Before the argument could dissolve further, the Guard-Captain mercifully arrived and beseeched him for a report, which he fabricated on the spot, concealing Hawke’s identity and his reasons for searching for her from the aging man. The Guard-Captain helpfully promised to forward his investigation to the Chantry in Val Royeaux so the Templar could continue his search before the mage unleashed more mayhem along the festival, offering to house him in the barracks if he needed a bed for the night which he politely declined.

After getting rid of the guards, he stealthily returned to Hugh’s Inn, finding the couple huddled together in the tavern and whispering quietly. They looked beyond distraught, the wife shaking and crying while her husband futilely tried to comfort her. Her softly wept apologies were answered with Hugh’s own quiet self-admonishments that he never should have left her alone with the elf. Fenris huddled away from them for a few moments, listening to them repeatedly forgiving each other and trying to assume the whole of the blame. It was strangely touching, speaking to that aching piece of his heart at the obvious tenderness these two carried for one another.

Steeling himself, he stormed into the tavern and made straight for their table before slamming his hands down hard over the heavy wood, knocking over her pretty vase and setting the water and fragrant flowers spilling onto the floor. “Where is she going?” he asked Colette once more, seeing the tears well up in her eyes at his deadly serious regard. She was clearly the weakest link in the duo so he targeted her and ignored her husband entirely.

She grimaced and replied, “We do not know.” The water on the table leaked into her lap but she made no effort to move out of the way, simply let the liquid soak into her dress as she stared at the table.

“I have spent the last two hours cleaning up her mess, falsifying my reports, lying to the Guard and to my brothers in the Order,” he snarled, picking up one of the dainty pieces of curio and hurling it loudly against the wall. “Do not lie to me! Where is she going?”

She sniffled again and said nothing, prompting Fenris to pick up her beautiful vase and shatter it, too, against the wall. The woman flinched bodily at the sound of breaking glass. “We do not know,” Colette replied again, quaking harder and burying her head in Hugh’s shoulder while he clutched their joined hands visibly and brought the other to caress his wife’s hair.

“Do you know what I have risked to keep your good names safe?” Fenris demanded furiously, bending over the table to lean maliciously into Colette’s face. “Do you understand what dangers you’d face if I’d not intervened? What do you suppose happens to girls like Brigitte when their parents go to jail?”

She sobbed harder and began again. “We do not…”

“We gave her a horse. She’s going to Cosazure,” Hugh interrupted his wife, who pulled away from her husband and stared at the innkeeper with such unmitigated horror that Fenris knew he must have been speaking the truth.

“Hugh!” Colette sounded shocked and dismayed as she backed her chair away from her husband, staring at her life partner as though she’d never laid eyes on the man before.

“He’s lying to the Chantry, Colette. He’s helped her and helped us,” he replied comfortingly and took her hand back into his before he returned his gaze back to the elf. “There’s a boat waiting for her in Cosazure. She did not tell us what she plans to do next.”

“Thank you,” Fenris offered, pushing away from his chair and heading for the exit. If Hawke had a ship waiting for her, it likely belonged to one of her supporters and would anticipate her arrival and set sail upon her command. His window to find her was closing fast, so he needed to hurry. He’d forego the Guard’s offer to house him, get Witchduck and beeline for the port. Perhaps if the Maker were on his side, he could get there before the ship sailed and her trail went cold.

Hugh spoke once more, causing the weary Templar to give pause. “I hope you find whatever it is you think she can give you, Leto. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry we lied to you.”

“As am I,” he replied over his shoulder before leaving the safety of the haven Marian had made for herself within these walls for a few brief hours before he’d stolen the sanctuary away from her and sent her running into the cold night.

Making his way into the stable, he made quick work of the lock by phasing his hand to shatter the tumblers from within then cursed when he realized Witchduck had thrown a shoe, grumbling in Arcanum as he painstakingly took steps to reapply it; there would be no hope of finding a farrier willing to forego the festival at this hour. Hoping his limited practice would see them both to Cosazure without further problems, he painstakingly took Witchduck’s obedient foot in his weathered hand and raised the mallet to drive the first nail in… but he hesitated. An imprecise nail could hit the quick and lame the stallion or inflict several other damages; then he’d be without a steed for at least a little while or at most permanently. He’d only ever shoed Witchduck under the careful watch of a farrier and the intolerably high risk of laming the horse far outweighed the benefits he might reap in his success.

Witchduck was not only his horse but also a gift of trust from Petra. She had raised the brutal steed from a colt, personally had him bred from the finest stock Starkhaven had to offer. The hesitancy marked his lack of skill and Fenris knew with no uncertainty that he couldn’t reapply the shoe; thus he began the painstaking task of removing the other three, knowing that if he could at least even the animal’s gait, the hard ride would be easier on both of them. Pulling the shoes off was easy, it was the task of filing the hoofs to evenness that he was loath to do. It was nearly dawn before he departed from Lydes- the sound of Lafayette’s dismayed shouts at the destroyed lock echoing distantly in his ears as he rode off.

He’d paid the man for a week and left after a night, thus was subsequently unconcerned at what cost the innkeeper would have to take upon himself to repair the simple lock.

The ride itself was long and miserable. He rode the horse like a man possessed, depriving them both of sleep until they’d nearly collapsed from exhaustion, then resting for a few hours before abusing their stamina once more. The vision of Cosazure panned over his tired eyes just as the sun began it’s descent in the sky. His coin was thrown at the stable keeper with a simple bark to tend to his animal and check his hooves before he ran into the port town, asking the various dock workers if they had seen a woman fitting Hawke’s name and description.

More bribes and veiled threats bought him passenger lists from the surly dock master, an aging retired merchant who doddered about with complete disregard to the urgency Fenris desperately tried to impart upon him. The list snatched into his greedy hands, Fenris began scanning the names of ships and people for anything that looked familiar.

“This one!” he demanded, feeling for a moment that his luck may have finally changed when he saw the name _M. Amell_ scrawled in an hasty post-script at the end of one of the long lists. That made sense, it would be suicide to travel under her own moniker and Amell was still a name she could legally claim. “When does it leave?”

The harbormaster heaved as he approached Fenris, and replied, “ _The Veiled Blue_? It already did. Sailed at dawn.”

The information brought a growl at his tardiness but regardless, he thanked the Maker that her trail had not gone cold. “Then tell me where it is going,” he ordered hopefully, feeling momentarily calmed.

“Tevinter, serah,” he answered sounding bored. “To Minrathous.”

That temporary relief evaporated and his heart struggled to pump his lifeblood through him, the deep red liquid suddenly thick and viscous with fear. Her destination felt like an act of betrayal. The witch had run to the one place she knew he wouldn’t- couldn’t- follow her. He scowled, pushing document back into the harbormaster’s hand, heading furiously back to the stables to get his horse and head back to Starkhaven. The prince would be displeased that he’d let Hawke slip through his fingers, even angrier if he learned how.

He wondered briefly if Hawke would return from Tevinter. He quickly discarded these fears. Marian would return, he knew. A mage of her caliber could not suffer the corruption of the Imperium long. But power was a seductive mistress and could take the most noble of mages and twist them into monsters by mere degrees and he could not deny the possibility that the woman who returned from Minrathous may not be the same woman who had departed for there. If that were the case… he could barely stand to think of it.

There was nothing for him to do but head back to Starkhaven but his feet, regardless, turned away from the stables and headed into the first pub he saw. Alcohol’s sweet embrace beckoned him like a siren’s song.

He needed a drink. Void take him, he needed several.

Coins slammed down onto the dingy counter began what he would eventually consider one of the greatest binges of his adult life as so far as he knew it. Since his entry to the Chantry, his consumption of alcohol had dropped dramatically, leading him to forget that his vaunted tolerance was something that needed to be nurtured and maintained. Orlesian wine was his first choice of poison for the evening, sweet and disgusting and thick- like the Tevinters liked their candy- and he choked it down even as the sugars coated his throat. Spirits reminiscent of the Free Marches, accompanied by Ferelden liquors, followed the wine.

The bartender attempted to stymie his consumption sometime into the second or third or fifth hour… he was no longer entirely aware of time. He’d promised to behave, paying an extra few coins for the trouble before returning to his dark corner to drink. Then- and he wasn’t entirely sure how this had come to pass- the serving girl brought over a double old fashioned glass filled with what was undoubtedly poison, some sort of chunky, milky green viscous fluid that coated the inside of his glass with a thick slime. It was almost insulting that someone thought him drunk enough to fall for this. She pointed to another corner, to a strangely dressed man who acknowledged him with a cocky tilt of his head. Irritation threatened to overtake him as he shot a glance at the man who held up his own glass filled with the same toxin and with a shout of ‘Salud!’ downed the drink in one go, sliding the glass back to the table and smiling triumphantly.

Fenris regarded the man further, his poufy, ponce clothing embroidered in rich purples and golds with a strangely crooked hat. Having assessed the man’s fashion sense, he contemplated the beverage once more, wondering what the Blight he was even thinking to even consider putting this vile looking liquid into his body as he threw his head back, tipped the glass and tried not to breathe as the slime oozed coldly down his throat.

Ugh… the taste. Maker, what the Blight had been in that drink?

The man grinned widely and moved to take a seat with the elf, introducing himself as simply Moss and beckoning him to pick the next round. Fenris devised the most disgusting invention his inebriated mind could conceive… something with pepper, mustard, brine and some milky liquor he remembered from earlier. It was not a proper drink- no one in their right mind would have concocted it as a proper drink. The man nodded his approval as Fenris downed his first and grinned before following his example. Rather than trying to engage each other with fists, they began sabotaging their palates and livers with combinations of flavors that were less drinks and more cries for help.

Time moved around him and he found himself standing in the side alley of the tavern with his new friend unable to recall leaving the bar. A bottle of wine was in his hand but he had no recollection of purchasing it. The sour taste of vomit lingered in his mouth, he must have thrown up but the tilting of the ground beneath him told him that the night was still young. He hadn’t punished himself this way since he’d left Marian after she’d begged him to stay, the words playing over and over in his mind.

“I thought you said your name was Leto,” Moss mumbled and Fenris realized he had been talking, worrying what secrets his loose tongue was spilling even as it kept flapping and slurring his words.

“It was,” Fenris hiccoughed, a small belch nearly turning his stomach into complete upheaval. “But magic took that, too.”

“Even when it gives, it takes…” Moss slurred back at him, leaning heavily against the tavern wall and tilting his head to the sky. “My beautiful Flemeth. I left my family for her. She was a witch,” he stuttered for a moment before he regained his composure, “I had a life… I had a family! I was _nobility_!

“But did she care? No!” Moss averred as he leaned too closely to the elf and his breath nearly sent the Templar’s stomach heaving. His face was close, leading Fenris into the fanatical devotion in his eyes. He’d seen it before in blood magic but could not sense its intoxicating grip on the man… perhaps it was the alcohol that blocked it. “But you and I, we’re enchanted… I can smell magic on you.” He continued remorsefully for a second before stating emphatically, “I could never smell it before but Flemeth changed me. She loved me for my songs and then hated the ones I wrote for her. ‘Like rotting Darkspawn corpses,’ she called them.”

Fenris shook his head in astonishment as he dimly recognized the woman Moss had become enamored with was none other than the Witch of the Wildes that Fenris had met on Sundermount with Marian. Somehow, he felt further comraderie with him for that- Flemeth had revealed herself as a master manipulator at her very core and he pitied the man who had fallen for her likely inescapable charms. “I’m sure they weren’t that bad. Let’s hear one,” he offered, willingly submitting his delicate ears as martyrs for the man’s sense of self-worth.

“Which one? I’ve got a hundred of them! She Told Me to Come and Then She Left Me. My Love is a Dragon- No Really, She Is. A Mage’s Ode is not her Code. She Set my Heart and Hair on Fire…”

“That one,” he emphasized his choice with a wavering point of his finger. “Do that one. She set things on fire. Always burning things down,” he added as an afterthought, more to himself than to Moss.

Moss scurried away for a long while and Fenris allowed himself to vomit in the alley in his solitude, wondering briefly exactly where he was before his memory negligently kicked in and reminded him of Marian’s departure to Tevinter, leaving him in his intoxication to wish again that he remember nothing at all. Already forgotten in the elf’s inebriated mind, the bard returned with a lute and with several sad strums of the instrument began to play the song he’d written for the mage he, too, had lost in pitiful recital.

_Her fingers lingered, quick and sharp_   
_And tapping on her cheek_   
_Hot like coal and cold as carp_   
_A tempered magi freak_

_She set my heart and hair on fire_   
_She put my soul aflame_   
_She threw my love on a funeral pyre_   
_Then left me to my shame_

_I’ll ne’er forget the Mage I met_   
_While wandering through the plains_   
_My sweetest, zombie love-baguette_   
_The love that ate my brains._

“Perhaps she did not appreciate that ‘zombie love-baguette’ line,” Fenris offered lamely, his mind stuttering over the man’s wretched prose.

“I was better,” Moss promised. “I was better before I met her… oh, wait!” he exclaimed as he frantically patted himself down for a quill, likely seeking a way to remember that line. Moss made several huffing little noises as he searched before going oddly quiet. A few moments passed until Fenris regarded his companion and followed his gaze to a small group of men blocking the alley entrance.

“Why don’t you just hand over your money and we’ll let you two lovebirds get back to it,” said the leader, letting a blade glint romantically in the moonlight.

Lovebirds? Oh Maker, these men thought they’d caught lovers. For some reason, it was more important to him to explain that he and Moss weren’t together than it was to process that these thugs meant to mug them so he began, realizing midway through his explanation that he was receiving blank stares from everyone including Moss. He was speaking in Arcanum, having temporarily forgotten the common tongue.

“Fucking Dalish never have any damned sense,” the man pulled out a knife and waved it slowly, gesturing his next words theatrically, “Give. Us. Your. Money.”

Those words made Fenris see red. They’d called him Dalish. That was it. Fenris had been spoiling for a fight and this man had finally obliged him. A gauntlet practically threw itself at the mouth near the offense, unsure if the suddenly bleeding mouth had even produced the statement. As unknown allies gathered to surround him, he hurled himself into haphazard combat, flinging his fists, feet and his elbows at anyone who dared to take on the drunken elf at all.

Even at his level of epic intoxication, Fenris was still a masterful fighter. His movements may have been a little laxer from the alcohol, but he rebounded from blows as though nothing had hit him at all, his muscles tensing only to deliver blows and not to receive them. Moss clocked his lute humorously over the head of a thug who came too near and Fenris choked out a laugh at the dissonant chord that rang out as he continued raining his fists down over their attackers until they lay unmoving and bleeding in the alley.

Somehow, they ended up back in the tavern. The bartender kept shooting them deeply concerned looks and Fenris, realizing his bloody, swollen knuckles and bruised face, couldn’t really blame him. But the man kept the drinks coming and he and Moss continued drinking them in soft conversation about the women they’d lost. Drunkenness made Fenris talkative and knowing he’d likely never see this man again, his life story poured out of him as readily as the alcohol poured in. Moss listened in rapt attention until finally three bloody men entered the bar with six perfectly healthy, very angry looking men.

“That’s them!” the leader from the alley called, pointing into the corner he shared with Moss.

“I want no trouble from any of you,” the bartender shouted as the serving girls retreated behind the bar.

Groaning, Fenris took an empty wine bottle from a nearby table and smashed the base against the table to break it off, holding up his makeshift shiv as he replied, “It is too late for that, I fear.”

The nine men charged, knocking over tables, chairs and barware to get to the furious elf and the cowering bard. He dispatched the first two without any difficulty, ramming the broken end into the neck of the first and shattering the body of the bottle against the next.

So now there were seven… or fourteen… his vision was sort of blurry.

He seized the first figure he could grab and threw him bodily into another, both careening backwards into the bar. Other patrons in the tavern noticed an opportunity to brawl and did so as Fenris squared off against another opponent. Before he could adequately focus his eyes to determine what manner of weapon the brute was holding, a flash of dark brown landing on the man and twin flashes of silver saw streaks of red flying. He turned his attention to the next, punching him squarely in the throat and kneeing him in the face until he collapsed to the ground. He turned to check on Moss and found the bard had retreated, likely a good idea, but the distant broken chords of his lute bonking repeatedly over some attacker’s skull told him the man would be fine and prompted another chuckle as he turned, smiling, and slammed another man’s head down onto a table.

The fight had erupted into a full-fledged riot and Fenris was no longer being attacked. Like some strange, dark beacon in the night, the dark Rivaini pirate appeared through the din and took him by the hand. Helpless against the familiar face, he allowed her to drag him through the mayhem he’d wrought, contentedly trailing behind the captain while she threw violent punches and kicks at the people surrounding him… completely willing to let Isabela take the lead and intercept the vicious attacks he’d wantonly provoked.

He followed her to an empty room and sighed obliviously as she began undressing him, her dark fingers wrestling against his clothing. That was the last thing he remembered.

 

* * *

“You’re soaked,” Hawke insisted as she shoved a bundle of clothing into his hands. “I absolutely insist.”

It had been nearly three years since they met. They’d run into her house from the sudden summer rainstorm. Having engaged in drinking and cards at the Hanged Man, they were now recovering from a small skirmish they’d encountered on the way to their respective homes. The trip had been quick but relatively uneventful, save for the unexpected downpour and the tragic state of lawlessness in Hightown. Fenris stood in her foyer, dripping wet and shivering slightly against the cold after she’d bid him to stay put and left to dart further into her house. Without an express invitation to venture behind her, the elf remained where he was and wished that he could be retreating into his own home where he’d shuck his soaked armor to sit naked in front of the fireplace with a bottle of wine and his uncomfortable thoughts.

Hawke reappeared still drenched through, bearing a bundle of clothing she meant for him to wear. Carver’s, she’d explained; he’d want the elf to wear it. Not wanting to argue with the slightly intoxicated mage, he followed her to one of the many guest rooms in the Amell Estate- she’d never personally acknowledged it as her own despite Kirkwall’s declaration. Bashfully, she opened the door for him and he lingered perhaps too long at the precipice, wondering briefly if she’d follow him in. But she turned away dutifully and began to retreat from him as he closed the door. The soaked armor was stripped and set aside immediately. The soft, dry cloth of Carver’s nightclothes was a welcome, if slack; a welcome change from the frigid linen and leather he’d rid himself of. Her brother’s pants hung loosely over his narrow hips, making him grateful Hawke had been considerate enough to include a belt.

A soft knock sounded at the door and he opened it, only dimly surprised to see Hawke on the other side of it, waiting patiently as he knew the fiery mage was absolutely disinclined to do. Her clothes were still wet- she had waited for him to dress. A drenched lock of hair drooped sadly over her eye and a single droplet dangled precariously from its peak, threatening to fall with every miniscule movement she made- he desperately wanted to brush it away with the backs of his naked fingers, to touch her face, to even touch her at all. She smiled softly and held out her hands leaving Fenris to wonder stupidly what she could possibly want.

“Your armor,” she answered his unspoken question with a shy smile, perhaps deliberately ignoring his eyes sweeping over her torso to the small pebbles straining against the fabric of her robes.

He fought the urge to unclasp her robes and pull the cloth aside to take the small beads into his mouth even as his fingers itched to do so. In mute repose, he watched her for a moment, unsure if he wanted to hand over one of his primary lifelines to her so unexpectedly. Oblivious to his thoughts- or perhaps hyper-aware of them- Hawke gathered her arms to clutch around her torso in an effort to stay warm, jutting her wet breasts out further and presenting those delectable mounds for his gaze.

“Bodahn can set it to dry,” she finished unabashedly, seemingly completely unaware of her effect on his physique. “Though I could have him start the fire in your room. That would dry them quickly enough, if you wanted. I don’t want to impose on your habits,” she offered. He noticed a small uptake in her lilt as she spoke- she appeared oddly nervous though he couldn’t figure exactly why. This certainly wasn’t the first time he’d slept in these very quarters but she’d never had reason to take his armor before.

Silently, he tore his lewd eyes away and left her to retrieve his gear, pushing it impatiently into her open palms. Those items, his salvation even more than his blade, were left to be cradled safely in her hands as he trusted her to tend to them. He wished now, more than anything, that he had found the courage to tell her that… to let her know how much he trusted her by letting her carry out the ordinary deed of tending to his armor, the only possession he still carried from his slavery in Tevinter.

But she knew. The gesture was not lost on her.

“Sleep well,” she nodded quickly and turned away, cradling the leather and metal against her body as though it were something precious to her as she retreated from him into the estate’s dim hallways.

“I’m not tired if you’d like to talk,” he called at her back, instantly cursing himself for how insipid he must sound. She spun on her heel and simply beamed at him for a moment before she beckoned him to meet her in the library.

That simple act of taking him away from his sleeping quarters brought him relief that he couldn’t even begin to explain. Too often in Tevinter his quarters had been shared and his sleep interrupted by Danarius for whatever deeds needed to be accomplished. Fenris refused to call it sex; refused to call it rape, even. It had merely been the status of his existence- just another feat assigned to him when he craved nothing more than the satisfaction of his master, when he would rest his head contentedly on Danarius’ lap for hours on end and think of nothing more than gaining his approval.

Those hated acts were now simply tasks he knew he was expected to perform and meant as little to him as the magisters he’d killed or the packages he’d toted while he carried the fear of what could be if he failed in his assignments. Even asserting that as fiercely as he did, denial was no solution and Fenris knew himself to be irrevocably damaged- perhaps one day suitable for more but for the time being perfectly content to live his life celibate like a priest or a Chantry brother. He had seen the horrors of lust but for all the intimate violence and innocent blood he had seen he could not deny his want, even as he despised it knowing what terrors it could bring.

That was the main reason why his reaction to Hawke’s flirtation was so confusing. Sometime after the first year he’d known her, he found himself _desiring_ someone for the first time in his memory. Sex abruptly became something he wanted as opposed to something that previously had just happened to him. He wanted to touch his lips to hers and run his fingers over her body and squeeze strange sounds of pleasure from her mouth like the ones he had heard when she found a valuable trinket on some dead bandit, macabre as that was… that she was a mage barely even registered but perhaps part of what drew him to her was the familiarity of magic he associated with the humans he’d been closest to. Like Danarius, she carried magic with her but was wholly different in every way he could name, nearly a perfect foil to the man he was running from…

Perhaps that alone was why he found himself running to her.

Instinctively, he began to dream about her, his faulty memory filling in the blanks at the sheer mechanics of heterosexual sex with the imagined sound of her panting beneath him. He’d laid awake and touched himself, masturbation being an act he’d never felt a compulsion to engage in before in his life, thrusting his erection into his hand and moaning her name as his seed spilled negligently onto his sheets in his stolen mansion. The act brought no shame as Fenris was too far beyond it to feel any guilt over his fantasies. He reveled in them, encouraged them, filed away her innocent exclamations as fodder for his lust’s cannon later. They were just another aspect of being free… for once he experienced the freedom to _want_ something.

The freedom of actually _having_ had never even been a possibility he considered… but surely enough, like a bonfire in the cold woods, Hawke was here and he knew that if he could find the courage in himself to reach into the abyss, it would be her hand that reached back at him. It both aroused and terrified him in ways he had never pondered. The urge to care for another had not manifested itself since his ill-fated dependence on Danarius and he wondered on more than one occasion if he had simply exchanged one senseless submission for another.

He waited in that vast open space surrounded by tomes he’d only begun to learn to read, sitting impatiently on the chaise and waiting for Hawke to make her appearance. His nerve was almost lost and he nearly retreated when she walked into the library, wearing that shamelessly short dressing gown of hers and bearing a bottle of wine, corking it efficiently before taking a deep pull of her own straight from the bottle. The glass tilted back against her lips as she crossed her ankles demurely, settling into her imposing armchair in a strange juxtaposition of eroticism and dominance and innocence- his mouth nearly watered at it while he pictured running his hands over her thighs and imagining what sounds she could make if he threw caution to the wind and simply bent before her and pressed his lips to the inside of her bare knee…

He realized she was looking at him expectantly and stuttered out a stupid, “Pardon?”

“I asked if you had anything you wanted to talk about,” she repeated with an easy smile and passed the bottle to him. Maker, why was conversation so easy for her? “I’m usually pestering you with questions when we’re in your home, I feel turnabout is fair play,” she finished with a playful wink.

“Tell me about growing up in Ferelden,” he replied quickly, feeling her that aspect of her life to be relatively neutral- if intimate- territory. He took a seat on the sofa next to her chair and watched the firelight dance over her face.

“Before we discovered I was a mage, I wanted to be a dancer,” she confessed with a guilty smile on her face. “I had an instructor in Denerim who thought I had promise. He was petitioning for my admittance into the Royal Dance Troupe, I would have been one of their younger students. I’d already landed an audition for a lead role in one of their major productions.”

That easy smile entranced him but he could sense the sorrow behind it when he quietly replied, “What happened?”

She released a breathy, bitter laugh. “I set a haystack on fire,” she answered unapologetically before continuing, “Fortunately, no one but my father saw but,” she paused, and drank from the bottle before passing it back to Fenris. “That was the end of it for me. Once you’re a mage, you cannot really be anything else. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d never manifested magic… what kind of life I’d be leading if it had passed me over.”

Fenris was surprised that she wondered at such things. Life was life, what happened had happened. But pondering the possibilities that could have been was something he was just now learning to do, so he allowed himself to think on it for a moment before he responded, “You’d still be fighting,” he asserted. “You’d be stabbing those pretty pointed slippers through the slavers’ throats. Your inherent sense of righteous indignation never would have let you stop at being a mere _dancer_.”

“It was a childish fantasy, I’ll admit,” she laughed sadly at the images he’d conjured in her mind of her as a child, dancing in a ridiculous costume and pirouetting her way through bands of thugs. “You cannot deny it certainly would have been easier, though.”

He realized for the first time that her life, indeed, would have been much easier if she’d been born a normal woman. But then where would he be, he thought darkly, back in the dark palace that had been his personal prison in Tevinter? He replied instead, “And you would be sitting here with some other man, wondering what your life would have been like if you’d been born with magic in you. You’re destined for great things, Hawke. Quiet mediocrity would never suit you.”

She smiled slyly, and shot him a meaningful look, “I could say the same to you.”

He took a drink from the bottle and leveled his gaze at her. “Without you I would be back in Tevinter- a slave to Danarius once more.”

She froze at those words, looking terribly disconcerted at them. “No, you wouldn’t,” she murmured quietly.

“Hawke,” he began in an effort to rationalize with her and shook his gaze from her.

But she cut him off quickly, “I have no doubt in my mind that you would have somehow made it through without me. Perhaps even gone back to Tevinter to start another Canticle-level slave uprising.”

“I was not that man,” he confessed, trying to make her understand all these strange changes that had taken him since he’d met her. “Nor am I that man now.”

She replied easily, “Look at the man you are now, at all you’ve done. How could you know if you never thought to try? What are you afraid of losing?”

“You, Hawke,” he retorted angrily, combing his fingers against his hair. “You are the only thing standing between the hunters and my mansion. I ran for _years_. No one assisted if I couldn’t provide the coin. I was alone until I found you. But you followed me; you fought even knowing I couldn’t pay you adequately. You had no reason but you remained by my side…” and he couldn’t speak anymore, the shame overcoming him for a terrible moment in time.

“Fuck Tevinter,” she replied, his mind stuttered a bit at her usage of the Common curses, pulling him from his shame and shocking him into silence. His lip quirked a bit at the knowledge that she’d chosen her words deliberately to distract him from his melancholy. “That’s why I stayed with you… Because it was right, not because it paid.”

“You are an odd, fearsome bird, Hawke- your father would be proud.” He meant the words as a compliment but she looked away, avoiding his gaze inexplicably until he leaned forward and moved his head into her line of sight. “Tell me about him,” he beckoned, suddenly feeling an urge to know what had wrenched that expression from her face.

Her eyes gazed into his. They stared at one another for a long time, each seeking answers to questions they wouldn’t speak. Hawke stood up from her terribly imposing armchair and seated herself next to him, tilting her head against his nearly bare shoulder, assuming an intimacy that had only been unspoken before. On some level, he could understand that she needed that sort of closeness now and he wouldn’t deny her, even while her hair tickled over the exposed skin of his chest.

She sighed heavily and said simply, “Father dreaded the idea that his child could be a mage.” She went quiet again, seeming to struggle to choose the proper words to speak to the Tevinter fugitive.

At her silence, Fenris wasn’t sure what sort of response to offer her, so he chose his obvious question. “I would have figured your father would be thrilled.”

“Thrilled?” she snapped incredulously even as she pulled away from him to regard him with harsh skepticism in her eyes. “Mages are forced into the Circle or actively hunted. We cannot have lives or even families of our own. What sort of father would wish that burden on his own children?”

It was the first time he’d ever heard her speak thus. He typically expected this manner of discourse from Anders, never considering for a moment that a mage would ever want to be anything else. “I’m surprised your father didn’t consider moving your family to Tevinter,” he replied cautiously, hating each word he spoke as much as he meant them to comfort her. “A mage can be nearly anything there.”

She bowed her head for a moment and took a long drink of wine before she leveled her gaze at him. “My mother suggested it once. I was six; it was before I ever displayed it. She said that if the twins or I ever manifested any abilities, Tevinter was always an option,” she took another drink and passed the bottle back to Fenris, who followed her actions before she continued. “Father went… completely ballistic. I’d never seen the man lose control- not before or ever after. Mother nearly took us and left him for it. He just kept blowing things up and screaming that no child of his would be raised in the Imperium.”

The cogs in his mind squealed at the sudden movement but he luckily retained the ability to remain somewhat diplomatic as he replied, “That is… an unusually violent reaction to Tevinter coming from a mage- especially from an apostate.”

“You think so, too?” she asked grimly. “I have my suspicions that he may have come from there originally. I remember when I was a child some men came to our home in West Hill. They sounded like you- your accent, I mean,” she corrected herself quickly. “I overheard something about ‘making arrangements’ before Father booted Mother and us from the house. When we came back, the men were gone, our things were packed, and we left in the dead of night. I never saw them again- I’m not even entirely sure that Father didn’t kill them.”

“Do you think he was an escaped slave?” Fenris hissed at the idea even as he spoke the words, knowing them to be false. If Malcolm Hawke had been a slave, he would have told his family as a warning of what could be or who could come for him.

“Perhaps,” she mused but a meaningful look told him that she, too, found this possibility unlikely. “Or perhaps a dockworker or a farmer or even a…” she trailed off and he let her- didn’t make her say the word he knew followed. _Magister_. She continued with a nod of thanks at his silent acceptance, “Father insisted his past was solidly behind him and that it should stay there. He never spoke about his life before Kirkwall.”

“You’ve never sought to find out?” he asked, passing the bottle back to her as she tilted her head against his shoulder once again.

“If he was from Tevinter, the only important thing about his past is that he exercised the good sense to escape.” He tensed, realizing her words applied directly to him as well, and left her in a quick stutter as she added, “Even Carver doesn’t know I’ve considered this. He was too young to remember West Hill with any clarity.”

“The senate loves to wax poetic about past magisters once they’ve departed. I’ve never heard anything about one by the name of Hawke.” He’d offered the words as a consolation into her strangely blunted ear but the look she gave him, one of doubt and guilt and deep consideration, spoke her words for her. He understood with that perilous look that she believed Hawke was a name her father had assumed upon his arrival in Kirkwall.

Her father’s true identity was a secret she alone carried, a lie she bore unaccompanied, likely a burden she’d concealed from even her own mother. But Hawke had kept her tongue stilled from questions about his own past and Fenris could do nothing less than the same. A look of understanding passed between them, a wordless question and an equally silent affirmation before she reached for the bottle at his feet and drank from it, closing her eyes against an accusation he would not level at her.

“I cannot think of you as a power-hungry magister, Marian, regardless of whatever your father may have done,” he averred softly as he leaned closer to her startling profile, somehow afraid that the stones of the room may betray the secrets revealed within it if he spoke too loudly while he continued to nuzzle against her.

He used her given name, yet another secret they shared in private. As far as he knew, no one outside of her family called her by that name. Acknowledging her as thus made him feel more familiar to her… closer than she permitted anyone else outside of her bloodline. However, he always somehow knew her permission to call her Marian wasn’t something she allowed to make him feel less a slave. In some odd way, he understood that she bade him to use it so he could feel like her equal.

“Do you, then?” she asked guilelessly and shifted temptingly closer, giving a careful glance sideways at the elf.

“Do I what?” he questioned, feeling her gravity pull him nearer until he could feel her short breaths on his face.

“Think of me,” she answered and twisted her head to face him. “Do you think of me at all?”

He tilted his forehead against hers and felt a strange comfort in her skin… not the uncomfortable burn at a mage’s touch he’d known in Tevinter but a warmth that radiated through him while he let himself become heady on the sense of her magic and the wine, let the burning lyrium branded into his skin touch benevolently to the Fade’s chaos roaring within her. “You know I do,” he offered softly to her while he brushed her nose against his and let his words grace across her lips.

Her breath was coming in shallow gasps when he shyly ghosted his lips over her cheek. He had virtually no experience with kissing, having witnessed enough of it in bars and brothels to gain a basic idea of the mechanics and little else. That limited understanding left him woefully unprepared for the intimacy of the act when his heart started beating harder and his breath came faster. His hands itched for a task so he stroked one along her thigh, dancing along the hem of her dressing gown before easing down to her knee and back up again, marveling at the softness of her skin. The air was suddenly thick and hard to breathe. He was mapping her face with his lips, exploring her from the arch of her eyebrow to the tips of her round ears to the sharp and elegant curve of her jaw. The room was silent save for the crackling of the fire and the roar of blood in his ears and the soft, nearly inaudible whimpers of the woman before him.

With a bracing breath, he pulled away from her. Her blue eyes, her fire-tearing-through-the-sky countenance gazed hazily back at him. She wanted the same as he, he could tell, but she wouldn’t take the choice away from him. She was, he realized, letting him take the lead- would not take anything he’d not explicitly offered, would not pressure him to give more than he was able. It appeared she had her own suspicions about his life as a slave and chose to err on the side of caution, keeping her questions mercifully unspoken. Malcolm Hawke’s silence had given his daughter enough working knowledge about the Imperuim to know that the people who escaped didn’t want to discuss the things they’d had to do to survive there.

It was not her burden and he would not place it on her. He didn’t want her pity or her horror, wanted her to keep that last vestige of innocence for a little while longer. But he was sick of running, of letting Danarius’ memory taint everything he touched, of being a slave to his own mind and memories rather than a magister. He _wanted_ \- wanted her more than anything his limited memory could recall before.

Throwing all caution into the wind, he pressed his lips against hers, letting his slight intoxication embolden him. The sound of her relieved sigh echoed through him and he pushed harder and probed deeper until they were sprawling intertwined with one another on the decorative chaise. His hands slipped up her body and over her face as he held her against his onslaught. The mage didn’t seem to mind and tangled her fingers into his hair and pressed her soft body against him, feeling very much like the flames she could summon with only a thought.

He pushed his tongue into her mouth, wanting her to understand his desire. She froze for a moment against his clumsy advances when he reached too far before forcing his tongue back to a comfortable distance where she began to caress it with her own, instructing by example. Her leg hooked around him as they settled into each other, arching her hips slightly against his and moaning softly while he studied her mouth with his and tangled his tongue in the shared space between, deciding he was quite fond of this whole kissing concept.

“And you?” he asked, pulling away slightly to look into her haunting eyes again. “Do you think of me?”

“Always,” she answered, arching her chest into his hands as he slipped his hand up to unbelt her heavy robe, opening her clothing and finally exposing her flesh to his curious eyes.

“Show me,” he groaned while he grasped her hand to pushed it down her body. She broke away, looking painfully shy for a moment- an expression he’d never seen before from her. He wondered where this unusual bashfulness was coming from… or if it had been some hidden part of her that she’d carefully concealed all along.

Redness touched her cheeks so he lowered his lips to hers again before he buried his face into her neck to hide his gaze from her. Freed from his scrutiny, she relaxed against him again and let him guide her hand further down to curl her fingers against her body, pushing one of her delicate digits deeply inside. Her panting sounded through the room while she arched against their joined hands, whimpering when he suckled the skin at her neck and mimicked her gratifying caresses, joining in the strokes and simple pressure that had her gasping. When he felt adequately tutored, he slipped his fingers under hers and took over, pushing his finger inside to marvel at the tight heat before brushing his thumb against the small, pulsating spot above that made her moan.

A wicked grin overtook his face when she started keening and begging for more. Shaking fingers clasped around his wrist while she cried and arched beneath him until she froze in his arms, her breath almost nonexistent as she fluttered at the edge. He pulled back to observe her and ran a rough nail against the small bud of skin he’d been caressing until he felt her quake and seize over his hands. Eyes desperately wide, shocking blue straight through him, and mouth slightly agape as she struggled to breathe, her lower lip called to him so he ducked down to press a kiss to it, raking his teeth roughly over her inner lip before he returned to watch her come down with his tender touches.

Her bright blue eyes glittered when he pulled her sticky hand to his mouth, kissing her knuckles diplomatically before moving to suckle on her finger. His own drenched fingers pushed insistently against her lips until her mouth opened and took him inside. He groaned when her tongue swirled over the digits and he felt the vibrations of a moan from her mouth tremor decadently through his hand.

“Touch me,” he gasped into her palm before returning to plunder her moist fingers with his mouth. Obediently, she reached down and freed him from his clothing, unclasping his belt and grasping his straining erection in her shivering free hand. His hand slipped from her mouth to follow hers, cupping her delicate fingers and guiding them to stroke his length as his tongue pushed her fingers aside and reached carefully into her lips, alternating almost imperceptibly between worshipping her fingers and her mouth. He groaned as he stroked himself with her other hand, unable to fully comprehend that this erotic act was actually happening.

“Again,” he groaned against her as he pulled his hand away from hers to slide back over her body. “Take it again.”

“Fenris…” The hiss of his name ended in a soft moan when he pushed his long, calloused finger back inside to wreck havoc on her body and repeat what he’d learned to commit it to memory. Dutifully, she continued pumping his length, varying the speed and pressure until he thought he’d die from it. He reciprocated, slowing when she began arching in earnest, grinning when her cries began taking on a frantic quality. Unbidden, memories of his enslavement under Danarius began creeping forward and those sounds of intense pleasure began to sound suspiciously like the sounds of unspeakable pain.

“Tell me you want me,” he demanded impulsively, punctuating his request with a sharp snap of his hips and hands. Her squeal could not be mistaken for anything other than abject desire but he made her say it regardless, because he needed to hear her soft pitch to keep his mind from going into darker places, to remind him that those words could be a plea and not a command as he felt himself approaching the end; her voice grounded him back into the present, so he made her pant her desire against his lips when she gripped him skillfully and he spilled onto her naked stomach, made her breathe it into his ears when she shattered against his insistent hands again and left him to memorize the feel of her shuddering violently over his fingers, gasping and whimpering as he eased her back down.

In the afterglow, he reached his hand between them and touched it gingerly to his rapidly cooling seed upon her belly. Pulling back, he stroked his dripping finger over her bottom lip before lowering his mouth to kiss it, suckling his bizarre benediction of their shared fluids away in an only semi-conscious effort to permanently associate it with her. When he repeated the movement, swiping his drenched finger this time along the crease of her lips, they opened to take to caress the offending digit inside with a chaste kiss while her eyes stared piercingly into him, exposing and accepting his terrible secrets onto her tongue.

It was important to him; he didn’t want to explain why and she- thankfully- would not ask, pushing her head up to kiss him as she readily tasted the salty fluid of his sins from his lip before she extended her tongue out to taste more from his finger. Caressing his mouth with hers again, she let him drink the strange sacrilegious mix they made together once more from her mouth.

He understood for the first time why pleasures of the flesh could be utterly addictive.

They cuddled on the chaise for more than an hour afterword, a dazed Hawke running exhausted twitching fingers through Fenris’ hair while he lazily suckled at her breasts, finding them utterly fascinating while his meandering hands mapped her, bringing her to that terrible precipice twice more, experimenting with his fingers while she quaked submissively beneath him. The library’s fire had died down when he carried the drowsing mage to her bed before returning to her guest chambers. Almost unbidden, his hand had slipped south once again to caress his straining flesh into completion. He came, cursing and grunting while he imagined her writhing beneath him, conjured the feeling of her lips lingering over his ear, pictured her mouth so vividly in that soft, needy, panting ‘o’…

… and he realized with unexpected clarity that _wanting_ suddenly wasn’t enough anymore. Something within him was changing, the tides of his solitary beach suddenly spawning a dock for travelers and he had no idea how he should even begin to deal with it. That unfamiliar port that she had opened left him feeling lost and confused as the sand shifted beneath his feet. He wondered, not for the first time, if he had simply swapped one master for another, one that needn’t a chain to keep him- fearing that this hazy contentedness and complacency would end with the same acts Danarius had bid him to complete.

Two days later, he would travel with Hawke to Sundermount and an encounter with Tevinter hunters would lead him to Hadriana in all her terrible glory… and after he’d lost his precious self-control and restraint, he’d take Marian to her bed and claim her irrevocably as his own; that act would tear down the walls he’d built to protect himself and for a brief moment, his blessed amnesia would lift to reveal things so horrifying his vulnerable mind had no choice but to slam the floodgates closed once more. Then this strange tango he danced with her would reach a terrible three-year intermission while he struggled against his horrid neuroses and fears. But tonight, he stood nude in front of the window at the Amell estate, feeling the air from the cold glass coil around his flagging erection, acknowledging the strange flips his heart made whenever he thought of her, staring out into the black night and wondering what this could all mean.

 

* * *

His memories banished from his mind, Fenris awoke the next morning and with no hesitancy stumbled to the washbasin and promptly vomited into it, choking on the bitter bile mixed with the various alcohols he’d decided to poison himself with last night. His throat throttled and valiantly tried to close itself from the onslaught but to no avail. Heaving and helpless like an intoxicated newborn, Fenris used his morning prayers to beseech that the Maker- and death- would take him quickly.

He wondered passively in his sickness how many blood mages had fallen into corruption from this very state. He could think of at least four Senate lushes he had encountered during his servitude to Danarius that would have taken a deal with a demon to escape hangovers.

“Ah, the majestic cactus awakens! Good morning, puppy,” came a brightly cheerful voice that grated in his ears and, he suspected, on his very soul as well. Death, it seemed had greater designs on him.

Isabela stood by the door, affirming that the Maker meant for him to suffer, arms crossed in a smug look of unusual sanctimony. Blearily, he checked the room, the sheets were rumpled and he was nearly naked, pants missing and his small clothes haphazardly fastened. Nothing else covered his lyrium-wracked body. His mind started spinning a blurry tableau of last night.

He’d been drinking, a flash of getting into a fight with some thug outside the bar with no memories of how it had started or ended and then… terrible songs- had he been singing to them? - And then Isabela taking him by the hand and being led to a bed. Then no amount of wracking of his mind could produce anything else. Maker, what had he done? Had he slept with her in a moment of abject weakness? He was so wracked with the aftereffects of the alcohol that he couldn’t even tell if his body had been used. He choked out a curse and vomited again, nearly gagging at the scent of the venom his body was steadily pumping out. It smelled like something had crawled inside of his body and died horribly.

Eyes watering, he shot Isabela the evilest look he could muster and groaned when his stomach heaved again. “What did you do to me?”

The look on her face could only be described as expected shock… the expression born of a woman who knew her reputation but felt her friends should expect better. Her narrow hazel eyes flashed in hurt as they regarded his sorry state before Isabela unceremoniously threw a ball of clothing at the heaving elf, that pained look retreating so quickly he was unsure if he’d merely imagined it.

“Thank you, Isabela,” the pirate began in a mockingly low voice meant to imitate his own, “for bringing me back to your own personal room to keep me from making a further ass of myself in that bar fight I started…

“…And for paying for the damages I caused with your own personal money,” she continued in a rage. “And for darning my fucking pants, which I ripped whilst I was beating the shit out of someone. I’m so _grateful_ ,” she spit maliciously, “that someone cared enough to ensure I didn’t awake in a damned prison cell in fucking Orlais!”

His hands unfolded the packet she had hurled at him and observed the cloth and leather that the enraged pirate had thrown at him, noticing a long rip had been artfully repaired, the stitching clearly the result of a craftsman who understood the integrity of the leather he wrapped himself him. He groaned, realizing his terrible folly before he turned to hurl more of his stomach up into the basin.

“Sorry,” he choked pathetically, praying Isabela would take mercy on him. “I’m not in the best of forms.”

She stomped furiously toward him and wound her weather-ridden fingers into his white hair, forcing him to look into her eyes. “I’m a slattern,” she reminded him with a fierce yank, “Not a rapist, you prick.” She pushed his head violently against the wall again, prompting another round of uncontrollable gagging.

“What happened?” he asked between coughing fits.

“Nothing nearly as bad as what you did to yourself,” she growled, still sounding clearly offended as she strolled over to callously slap a cold cloth on the back of his neck and set a glass of water next to him, “Even if either of us had wanted to, I doubt you could have.” She heaved another weary sigh and gestured to the chaise she’d slept on throughout the night. “I miss Varric being your blackout babysitter. I had to pull your sorry ass out of the bar before you hurt yourself. You were hitting the bottle so hard it decided to hit you back.”

“I need to find Hawke,” he stuttered as his stomach began to settle and he reached for the glass of water, pounding half of it down before he regained the forethought to know better. He leaned back against the paneled wall and wiped the sweat from his brow, cursing whatever demon had possessed him to try and take on a mug of Dwarven ale on top of the spirits he’d imbibed to start.

“So you’re a bloodhound now?” Isabela joked mirthlessly. She pulled away to seat herself on the sofa again, pushing her stolen bed linens out of the way and crossing one of her bare thighs over the other. “Bet you wish you were more of a retriever… they’re bird dogs aren’t they?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he growled at the pirate before his stomach ejected weight of the water he’d just imbibed, bracing himself for a moment before he took a cautious sip from the glass again. “Where is she?” He cursed that his voice still trembled with weakness.

“She who?” Isabela asked coyly. Fenris said nothing, just stared coldly at the woman before him until she sighed in disgust. “She’s not with me if that’s what you’re asking.”

He snorted, feeling that action choke some residual stomach acid back into his throat. It burned and caused his voice to crack as he spoke, “That is not what I’m asking. I am asking you where she is- not where she clearly is not.”

“Such a shame, I could tell you a thousand places she isn’t,” she sneered angrily as she strode about his room and began gathering his things. “On the moon. In my pocket. Rutting beneath the finest beast on my ship, his name is Harold by the way…”

“You are unfunny, Isabela,” he groaned- to call the words pathetic would have been a gross understatement of his condition.

“I’m only here to amuse myself,” she grinned as she shoved his armor into his pack. “Any incidental humor is completely accidental. Besides, judging from last night’s bender, I’d wager you already know where Hawke is. I put her on that ship myself.”

The muscles of his face contorted painfully as he dropped his head, his neck deciding to abandon the arduous task of supporting his skull- so it was true… Marian had fled to Tevinter. “Why is she going to Minrathous?”

Isabela paused, seemingly unsure of what answer she should give before she ducked her head and offered, “Two reasons, the first was to escape you. The second she didn’t tell me. But she apparently already had plans to go. The ship took sail a half day before you arrived. She barely made it onboard.”

His head tipped back and he groaned, barely repressing the heart-wrenching howl that threatened to surface. Hated tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill over if he couldn’t control himself… but he couldn’t and so they did. Squinting his eyes shut as hard as he could, the water from his eyes leaked and fell maliciously onto his cheek.

She was gone.

He’d lost her all over again.

The sound of a chink of glass echoed from the windowsill beside his head as Isabela placed a narrow vial before him. Far too sick to question whatever it was, he downed its contents without hesitation, trusting the woman before him in a way he’d only trusted Marian before and feeling any retribution would be well deserved. Instantly, his stomach started to ease from the knot it had coiled into and his headache dulled from a magnificent roar into a mere pounding pain.

“You’ve been invited by the city council to leave the port,” she informed him, “I’ve already taken your horse on my ship; mucking him will be your responsibility. We sail at noon for Cumberland.”

He nodded dumbly, all his effort expended on keeping his emotions contained. “Thank you,” he answered.

He heard her shuffled around the room a bit longer before she stood before him again. “She asked me to give this to you,” she said, pushing an envelope against his prone legs.

His hands shook violently as he took the envelope and slid the letter from its holster. What would it say? That it was too late? That her hated heritage had finally told her that the Imperium was where she belonged? There were only two words scrawled on the page in her elegant hand and they managed to bring him more comfort than anything he could have ever considered. A soft smile crossed his lips as he reread those two words over and over again. She planned on returning, it seemed. Allowing himself to breathe a sigh of relief, he rested a moment before Isabela, practical wench that she was, spoke again and tore all that consolation away in so few words.

“Did you at least protect her, Fenris?” the pirate asked. At his confused glance, she clarified, “Were you safe?”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” he mumbled as he folded the paper and toyed with the edges.

She ducked before him and placed her naked hand against the bare skin on his shoulder, ignoring the reactive lyrium as she softly asked, “Could Hawke be pregnant?”

Those quiet words knocked the wind out of him better than a hammer to the chest. Same as the first time he’d taken Marian to bed, he’d been completely negligent toward contraception. He struggled to breathe against the very real possibility that he could have left Marian with child… his child. Was that why she’d gone to Tevinter, to chance raising his child without him? Some sort of terrible sound came choking from his throat as he found himself for once unable to maintain the stoicism that had carried him through more trials than any one person could have ever known.

“Yes,” he answered roughly, trying to hold back the onslaught of emotions threatening to overtake him.

He felt her weight shift down to the hard floor next to him as she took his heavy head in her arms and pulled it against her breast, breathing, “It’s all right, puppy. She won’t stay. Go ahead,” she murmured into his sharp ear as she stroked her rough fingers through his soft hair. “I won’t tell anyone.”

He rested his head on Isabela and felt the hated tears overwhelm him, unable to fight them any longer while this weakened state and these turbulent thoughts left him so vulnerable. Feeling a freedom he’d only ever felt before in Marian’s arms, he clutched at Isabela and wept, cradled against her chest as she rocked him comfortingly while she whispered soft reassurances into his ear, whispering things that she clearly had not known. He sobbed harder and buried himself farther into her skin as his mind spun at the implications of all she had said along with everything that he could not completely understand. Her soft assertions that Marian was not lost to him only prompted him to weep harder.

Due to his own raging hormones and unwillingness to acknowledge his feelings and prepare for at least the possibility of sex, he would be left unknowing- perhaps forever- if in the passionate abandonment they’d found in each other’s arms, he and Marian had produced a new life between them.

No. She was not gone forever, he reminded himself as he clutched the paper in his hand as tightly as he could without crumbling it. Hawke hated Tevinter and would return. If she were pregnant, she would _certainly_ return. Her father’s memory would not stand for it and neither would she. He unfolded the paper and allowed his eyes to read her missive to him again. Two lonely words that were as much a declaration as a solemn promise to return:

 _Fuck Tevinter_.

Those were the only words the mage had felt she could offer him, the common cursing meant to shock him from his melancholy. They would have to be enough for now.

 

* * *

_End Chapter 4_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AmericanCorvus and BuriedBeneath are my champion betas, slaying poor grammar with deft keystrokes.


	5. Deaths in the Family

Nemesis  
Chapter 5- Deaths in the Family

“ _I am a fugitive, I’ll give you that, but I am a dangerous dragon of a fugitive who you are asking to ignore her staunch, burny righteousness.”  
Marian Hawke_

_The Veiled Blue_ left Hawke in a tragic state of seasickness. Sensitive inner ears ran in her family, all three remaining members of the Hawke lineage had endured the boat ride from Gwaren to Kirkwall while violently ill. She tried everything from ginger to sugared lemon drops and some strange tablet a healer in Cosazure had recommended she keep tucked beneath her tongue, even an odd tight band that pricked her wrist- how that was even supposed to help she’d likely never know, perhaps the perpetual annoyance was meant to distract her. The only thing that kept the constant nausea at bay was laying low in her bunk like a bear in hibernation waiting for the warmth of spring.

It had been three weeks into the voyage on a cool, damp night that she dared to allow herself to think of Fenris and she realized abruptly that she had not menstruated since their meeting almost two months ago. The revelation was unsurprising overall- the stress of her new lifestyle had shed more than a few pounds from her frame and it had been months since she’d gone through a proper menses. It had never given her reason to pause but then again, she’d been more or less abstinent for longer than she cared to admit, save for the heavy petting she’d engaged in with Fenris those last days in Kirkwall and more recently a few bungled attempts with another woman when the stress was too much and she couldn’t sleep.

For those painfully awkward occasions she’d bedded down with Margot, desperately needing comfort and rejecting the idea of another man’s touch while she mourned- even before she knew Fenris yet lived. Margot had found her way into the Wildervale camp from the Circle in the Anderfels. She was kind, strong, a rock that Hawke could lean on for support- and had on several occasions when she felt overwhelmed. The woman, only slightly older in years, had expressed her interest in Marian but she’d always been turned down for a multitude of reasons, the primary deterrents being Hawke’s grief for the lover she thought she’d killed and her innate preference for having sex with men.

She’d never slept with a woman before- never even been tempted to- but when Margot suggestively offered to help her forget the plight of mages on a particularly difficult night, she found herself letting the older woman lead her into her tent and entirely unfamiliar territory. Hawke had never considered herself to be gay and Margot seemed to know that. When Marian had tried to reciprocate, to be at least a considerate lover, Margot had tugged her back up into a gentle embrace and beckoned the Champion to sleep, lazily stroking the mage’s breasts as she dozed off into the Fade. She always walked away the following morning deciding she’d probably not lie with another woman again but grateful that Margot had given her release and a solid night’s sleep… and that gratitude and escape from her recurrent insomnia had been the things that kept driving her back on the few occasions when she was too overwhelmed to cope.

Pushing those highly uncomfortable memories from her mind, Hawke laid in her room aboard _The Veiled Blue_ , reclined on her back against the cool wood floor while she fought her roiling stomach. She contemplated her flat belly, wondering with a sense of dread if her encounter with the elf could have left her pregnant, simultaneously ecstatic and horrified at the very notion. She couldn’t risk casting magic on the ship; unnatural flares of colored light had a disturbing tendency to reveal a mage’s presence, so she began the task of diagnosing herself without summoning her abilities.

Did she _feel_ pregnant? No. But she suddenly felt a sort of sympathy for the women she’d examined who asked, “What do you mean? How is pregnant supposed to feel?” Those responses were typically from women without child but she had the occasional one who lacked the ability to sense her womb. Were her breasts tender? No more so than usual. Headaches, backaches and nausea? She had those in spades. Her knowledge of the arcane arts allowed her to diagnose a half dozen apostates’ pregnancies in the last year but she’d never had cause to check herself- she’d always gone to Anders for that.

The thought of Anders brought about another heavy wave of nausea and she barely made it to the steel pot the ship’s cook had given her, adding once more to the wretched stench of sick that permeated her cramped quarters. Armed with the knowledge that the lingering illness could be completely unrelated to her current maritime activities, she stumbled through the ship to the onboard healer, an apprenticed physician heading to Antiva, pausing only to unceremoniously spit out her stomach’s bile in the hallway before she stumbled into his quarters.

He asked the routine questions that she’d already asked herself and stated bluntly that it was unlikely that she’d conceived based on her answers, which she’d already suspected. Then he made a series of frighteningly intimate observations regarding her body, illustrated by her nearly non-existent cycle- her life of running and anxiety had wrecked utter havoc on her system. She was fortunate, the man had said, that she did not display the signs of pregnancy, as it was nearly impossible that she would be able to carry a baby in her condition, even if her current situation allowed it- and he used those words in a deliberate attempt to covertly convey his knowledge as to exactly who she was.

“So what would you have me do?” She’d snapped at the well-intentioned man as she dispelled the pretenses that he knew not who she was, “Feast while the camps starve? Rest while my people run? Put my own well being above that of my obligations?”

“Unless you’re planning on serving your cause as a martyr, I’d suggest you start taking care of yourself,” he retorted quietly. Then he grasped her shoulders and spun her nearly naked body to face a mirror, forcing her to reflect upon her gaunt figure in earnest, pointing out her concave belly and the indentations from her ribs before he clinically ran his fingers over the ridged column of her spine and noted its prominence to her as well. She groaned at his logic, knowing him to be right and loathing the words she’d heard from both Margot and Carver before.

As a final consolation, he offered her two potions- one that would expel anything in her womb and another that would prevent conception from taking. He insisted, however, that she take the first before she took the second to insure that her womb was fully prepared for the contraceptive to take its proper effect, given her practically negligent lack of a menstrual cycle for the last year.

If she was serious about maintaining a potential pregnancy, he’d told her damningly, she needed to disembark the ship at the soonest opportunity and eat like a horse until she put some weight on and even then, it may be for naught. Unfortunately, without more time, he declared sympathetically, it would be impossible to know if she were pregnant for sure and the potion’s abortive effects would only get worse the longer she postponed taking it.

He offered no answers so she told him that she needed time and shamefully stumbled back to her quarters, plugging rags beneath the cracks of the door to conceal her activities and dared to cast magic onboard. Summoning the Fade’s spirits, the white light from her hands encompassed her belly and dove inwards. She finally found the courage to beckon the dead souls to seek out a separate life within her. At their answer, she asked again and begged again and pleaded yet again, lacking her beloved objectivity and almost recklessly pulling the Fade’s ghosts in to inspect her womb until she finally sensed demons lingering at the periphery waiting to take advantage… and felt tears leak from her eyes when they told her once more that nothing was there.

There was no life. If one had been created, it did not take to her womb and they could not tell her if for even a brief moment she had been pregnant. Her only memento of her time with Fenris was an enduring, vibrant and painful memory. But at least she finally knew.

That night, she curled into herself on her bed and sobbed, the prospect of pregnancy and subsequent loss forcing her to relive losing him yet again. The certainty of her decision to run ebbed but she could only guess what would happen should she try to return. Had he even given thought to this simple biological consequence? She pictured him, his face scowling grimly at the mere thought of conceiving a child with a mage. Then paranoia reared its ugly head as well. Had the Chantry ordered him to impregnate her in order to slow her down? They had to have known that Fenris and she had been intimate at one point; perhaps this was just another underhanded way to get at her.

But it left her with the dismal realization that she could not under any circumstances birth or care for a child at this point in her life.

With that thought, she returned to the physician’s room and took the first potion, which laid her up for three days. She howled in pain, bled and vomited over the patient’s cot while he clinically tended to her, feeding her broth and crackers all while insisting that it would be over soon; in a moment of weakness, she’d cried pitifully to him that it already was. On the third day, he informed her softly that she clearly had not been pregnant, which she’d already known, and administered the second potion, which warmed her as it fortified her reproductive system and strengthened her from the biological trial she’d endured.

As she left, he’d pressed the recipe for the potion’s reversal into her quivering hand. She noted it absently but mostly ignored him, despising him irrationally for having hurt her so thoroughly despite having chosen the torture willingly. That and she already knew the potion that would void the contraception; no respectable healer wouldn’t have known it.

Strangely enough, whatever healing effect the potion had taken over her reproductive organs also banished from her the wretched seasickness. Slight nausea still loomed over her but she regained the ability to walk over the decks of the ship and partake of sustenance once more. It was a blessedly unexpected and highly bittersweet side effect of the physician’s tincture. It also gave her the queer need to question if the exaggerated nausea had been at least partly psychosomatic.

The remainder of the trip’s first leg was relatively uneventful. She bathed, ate, read and wandered the hull until they finally touched ground in Wycome. New allies waited for her here but she worried, this was the smallest spackling of mages she’d seen band together, only six of them. Only a handful of letters had been exchanged between them and they were expecting her in a few months; she was about to quite literally show up unannounced on their doorstep. Hopefully, they’d still be able to find her a guide. The mere thought of traipsing around Tevinter as a lone wanderer sent shudders over her.

She gathered a few things, a fair bit of coin, her staff and a bit of food and made her way to the upper deck when the ship finally reached port. As she prepared to disembark, the captain pulled her aside. “Isabela tells me you have people you need to meet here,” he said quietly as if he feared overhearing, “and that you’ll be bringing on another.”

“That is true,” she replied dauntlessly. “I hope she paid for their passage. If not, I’ll gladly see you reimbursed for their fare.”

“You and your friend are paid, as you well know,” he scowled at her. “I just want you to know that we are scheduled to leave port in three days. Isabela waited weeks for you. I feel you should know that I will not. I have ports to service, merchants to meet, and those contracts will not allow me to wait for you to finish running your errands.”

“I have a long standing relationship with Isabela,” she answered easily. “I would not assume such niceties from a stranger, regardless of how roguishly gallant your type seems to be.” She batted her eyes at him almost subconsciously, hoping to endear a little latitude from him.

“Be back on time or your ship has sailed, _Amell_ ,” he warned with a flirtatious smirk, implying the honor-amongst-thieves mentality that had carried her through so many ports before at Isabela’s behest.

“I shan’t disappoint, Captain,” she reassured the surly man. “I only hope that you’re willing to share some fine Antivan brandy with me upon my imminent return.”

“For my own sake,” he hummed thoughtfully as he contemplated her figure, “I certainly hope so. These voyages are long and I could use a… first mate,” he finished suggestively.

“Well, I’d hate to be your second. I have a thing about coming first,” she answered with a flirtatious wink and a whole heap load of innuendo, hoping she’d charmed the captain enough to invest himself somewhat in her well-being. Once she was back on the ship, she could reject him all she wanted. This port was vitally important, she could huddle into the boat for shore leave anywhere else but this marked her last potential refuge on the trip and she absolutely had to make it back onboard.

“I’ll bet you do,” he replied with an amusedly arched eyebrow. With a wide grin, she proceeded to walk the plank and saunter into the port, being sure to add an extra swish to her hips when she felt the captain’s eyes hover over the derriere.

She departed but still worried. At this point, they’d only set up rudimentary contacts this far east into the Free Marches. After all, it had only been a year since the uprising in Kirkwall… only faith had taken her this far and only insanity would take her farther. She rented a horse to take her to the outskirts of Wycome, arriving at her destination well before nightfall. A teensy house on the red-rocked hill beckoned her like a smoke-signal and she made her way to it, praying to the Maker that this venture would go smoothly.

When she finally reached it, she dismounted her horse and made her way to the hovel’s front door. Knocking on it soundly, she listened to the various sounds flutter and silent within and nodded to herself. This was definitely her safe house. The windows were all covered, letting not a beam of light within and betraying a meager crowd of allies within its caving walls.

The door opened a crack and a wary blue eye regarded her quickly accompanied only by the words, “Who are you?”

“I am the defender,” she answered her codename quietly through the crack, Carver’s synonym for her title. Still afraid of who may hear on the desolate hillside and praying this new sect would recognize her, she dared to utter, “The Champion of Kirkwall.”

The voice inside took on a panicked pitch and answered, “I know no one by that name.”

“But you do,” she insisted before she dared, “and I am Marian Hawke- early but here regardless.”

The door swung open and her neck wrenched violently as she was dragged inside. Two filthy mage youths, likely not yet twenty huddled in the room alongside her erstwhile captor as he dragged her away from the dimmed windows and demanded, “Why are you early?” In this dim light, it was hard to tell much about the man, other than his blue eyes, light hair and rather striking silhouette.

“A meeting with a potential ally ended badly,” she answered the blonde man. “But I haven’t been followed, I swear it” she insisted hurriedly, realizing this mage’s obvious paranoia would be agitated by the possibility of a hunter coming behind her.

“Then make yourself at home, I suppose,” he answered grimly and gestured to the shadows of the run-down house. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she surveyed her surroundings. “It isn’t your own pursuit I fear, there have been an unusual number of Templars nosing about in the area. We cannot draw undo attention to ourselves.”

“I know Carver told you I’d be coming. I just need a guide for Tevinter and then I’ll be gone,” she replied easily as she removed herself from the mage’s steady grip.

He called another man and beckoned him to go find someone named Horrus before the page departed with a quickly uttered prayer. Then they made formal introductions, the mage introducing himself as Dax before presenting her to all his companions- Vera, Jacob, Lydia and Greyson… and a little girl named Delia, likely only five or six years in age, who ran up to Dax with her arms spread wide as he ducked down to scoop her up into his arms whilst he pressed a fond kiss onto her cheek. She was too young to be a mage and the clear affection between the two told her that this must be Dax’s daughter.

“My bunny is broken,” she sighed into Dax’s neck, presenting a shabby stuffed bunny to him in her limp arm. “His eye fell off.”

Hawke smiled as she saw the ragtag stuffed animal, one buttoned eye missing from his sweet face as Dax replied, “We’ll find you another, love.”

“No!” she insisted quickly as she pulled her face away from him. “You cannot replace Ser Hoppers! I have his eye, you can fix it!”

“I’m a nightmare with a needle, love,” he replied as he took Ser Hoppers into his hand and observed his hackneyed stare dramatically. “He’d end up with eyes in the back of his head and bunnies cannot find carrots in the sky!” he finished with a playful snort that he sounded into Delia’s short neck, snuffling and snarling playfully while the little girl giggled uncontrollably against him. The other mages looked away, looking uncomfortable at the overt love being displayed before them… but they’d likely been locked away in this shack for ages, and affection remembered only as something they’d had and lost.

“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” Hawke offered, taking the bunny from his hands as she grinned at Delia’s delighted innocence. The sewing would be simple; she’d darned her own robes enough to know how to adhere a simple button. “Well, this seems to be quite the dire case!” she cried with over-enthusiasm and an exaggerated motion of her hands. “Fortunately for us all, he is not a fish,” she quipped before giving Dax a quick wink. “Do you know what they call a fish with no eyes?”

“No…” Delia answered with a slight furrow of her brow and side-eyed her with that same wary look Hawke had earned from Dax.

She leaned in close to her little ear and sounded, “Fsh,” in a quick hiss. Delia burst into a new fit of laughter, such a strange addition to this dreary place. Content that she managed to get a decent reaction out of the girl, she held up Hoppers and said, “All joking aside, as a healer, I promise that I will have Ser Hoppers back to you good as new.”

“Promise?” Delia asked guilelessly. “Ser Hoppers will live?”

“I promise,” the mage reassured her. “Ser Hoppers will be up in the bunny fields again faster than you can say ‘carrot.’”

“Carrot!” Delia cried excitedly.

“Well, perhaps not quite that fast,” she conceded with another wink, although the child seemed utterly overjoyed at having caught an adult in a fib. She reached her hands out to Marian and clutched her neck as she pulled her tiny frame against the mage in a fiercely childish hug as Hawke took her into her arms. Dax looked on with a contented smile, seemingly glad that his daughter had found happiness for a moment in this miserable shack.

Delia pulled away and clapped her hands together joyously as she handed Hawke a silver button, mismatched to the wooden one already donning Ser Hoppers’ worn cloth face. Ser Hoppers’ was already a secondhand toy, it seemed, but one that thrilled the child in a way that reminded her of Bethany. So she vowed to set the bunny’s eye’s right as soon as the clamor died down in the evening and she had the chance to get a proper needle, provided Dax even had one.

These were displaced Circle mages, after all, lacking the capability to do nearly anything for themselves. It was yet another tragedy of her brethren, unable to even sew a simple button for their helplessness. They needed to be integrated into the larger camps at least to learn techniques for simple survival. But that was a task for tomorrow, when she’d send them packing to join the nearest western camp.

She set Delia back to the ground to tear about the house once more before Dax approached and whispered a quick, “Thank you… For everything,” into her ear. She shot him a quick wink and a quirk of her lips as her answer. Sewing a button onto a doll was nearly the least she could do at the moment while she waited for her guide to arrive.

The telltale prickle of the Fade being blocked brought her head up violently. The other mages’ did the same as the door was unceremoniously kicked down. Three Templars stormed into the building, quickly knocking out Vera and Dax with the pommels of their swords. She whipped out her dagger and drove it into the throat of her nearest assailant, noticing with dull dread the other two flanking her as they reinforced the Silence and her magic failed.

Somewhere in the house, she heard Delia scream, and then a blinding pain echoed through her head and everything went black.

She woke in a dank, dark place. The only light she could divine came from the candles lit almost romantically in the corners. Silence still held, draining her before she could even conjure the ability to move. She forced her will beyond its limits and felt a corresponding ache on the opposite spectrum with an eerie glow of light- the simplest spark brought inescapable, debilitating blue freezing; the mere thought of telekinesis responded with a corresponding fuchsia pull, leaving her to feel like her body was crushing in upon itself. Her healing abilities, which she tried last to ease her pounding head, ended with the deep sensation of stabbing corresponding over her body and looking down, she saw blood seeping from cuts that had not been there before as all the light seemed to be sucked from the room.

It was a rune collar, charmed to counteract anything she could cast- the ultimate Templar weapon. Shit.

She was naked but a quick assessment told her that she’d not been sexually violated… yet, her mind added dully. A dazed turn of her head revealed Lydia and Jacob chained in various positions around her, naked as well. The sound of a low male groan told her that Dax was somewhere behind her, so Vera and Greyson had to be there as well. She unconsciously pulled her hands forward to conceal her body and realized that she, too, had been chained to a pillar with her arms locked captured behind her back. Her fingers reached back and felt a small piece of metal, touching the ornate indentations and a small protrusion with a tiny hole molded within… it was the button Delia had given her, fallen from her pocket when they undressed her. But where was Delia?

Heavy footsteps sounded behind her, creaking the floorboards as boots descended. The sounds came from behind her, so she was unable to identify the exact sound. The creaking ended as the jingle of metal on metal resounded through the room. She gripped the button in her hand, running her fingers over it defiantly as the sound came nearer.

“Where’s my daughter?” Dax’s voice shouted. “I asked you a question, you son of a bitch! Where is my daughter?” Quick footsteps preceded the song of metal striking flesh, the melody rang through the room and all was quiet again. Hawke couldn’t see anything, her sick imagination filling in the blanks for her while Dax’s choking provided the rest.

After hearing much more pacing, her captor finally revealed himself to her- an ordinary man holding a heavy pack, which he dropped on a large table before he ducked to check the integrity of the chains he wrapped around it. He turned toward her, holding a dull red poker in his hand as he approached, the metal on the end was shaped into almost decorative scrollwork and she realized in horror that it was a brand.

“Your kind should be easier to find,” he said so softly she almost had to lean in to hear before he tangled his fingers into her hair and forced her face against the hot brand. Nothing in the world could have contained her screaming when she felt the iron touch her face, unsure if the pain or the sheer terror set her voice to cracking. Dimly, she heard her companions shouting but that sound was undercut by a low grunt, a deep, booming voice ringing through her head bidding her to give in. _I can help_ you, it growled. _Just let me in._ Bile rose in her throat as she braced herself for another cry, trying to ignore both the demon trying to invade her mind and the heat scorching into her flesh.

The man shoved her head away and his subsequent gaze offered not retribution or apology, but only a blank look of having completed some menial task as she fell back, her skin smoldering around mark of her implied inherent sin, a bastardization of the vallaslin Merrill had waxed so elegantly over. Current circumstances rendered it much less poetic.

He left and returned, the floorboards creaking and the iron a dull red again. Pitifully, she moaned, “No, not them. Whatever you want, I’ll give you… but leave them alone.”

_You’re the only one who can save them,_ the demon hissed once more.

“What I want, you’ll give me, Hawke,” he answered calmly. Her heart thudded even harder against her ribcage at his use of her name, wondering with a sense of dread if her presence was what brought this monster before her. “It isn’t a question. It is a fact.”

And he set the brand upon the other’s faces as well, retreating only to reheat the metal, their screaming ripped a hole straight through her as she pleaded with him to stop hurting them. When the vicious branding was completed, the dull thud of a physical blow sounded and their attacker hauled Dax’s limp body to the table, chaining him down. Hawke realized that all her companions were positioned to face the table… and the sick realization fell over her that whatever was next meant to happen, they were all supposed to _watch_ it.

“My name is Gerard Maison,” the man offered his name to Dax as he opened his pack to reveal an arsenal of blades, varying in size, width and length. Selecting a needle thin dagger, he said, “You and I will know each other very well,” he added before he drove the blade beneath Dax’s fingernail, the clang of metal and the patter of blood dripping to the ground playing in a wicked symphony accompanied only by the screams of his victim.

Before her very eyes, he set upon Dax in earnest, displaying his inner workings for his unwilling spectators, from the wretched corkscrew lodged deeply into the tender structure of his thigh to the knife he used to swipe across the mage’s eyes. Dax howled; cursed and grunted; screamed and begged for death and for his Delia. For an infinite expanse of time, she watched in abject horror as Dax was forced to bear tortures that no living thing should ever have to suffer… castration, amputation, as well as pure, unadulterated mutilation at the hands of the stone-faced golem before them.

_Let me help you before it’s too late._

The demon called clearly into her mind and she forced herself to ignore the wretchedly appealing offer. But as she listened to Dax’s suffering, the demons’ roared louder until the ceaseless screeching was only slightly overpowered by the terrifying echoes of Dax’s screams. Behind her, she heard a telltale grunt and the sounds of snapping and ripping. Maison immediately took up his sword and darted behind her, the next sound being a sick squelch and the sound of Vera crying Greyson’s name. He’d made a deal in his fear and the Templar struck him down.

_I can set you free._ The demon’s insistence told her only that she must fight harder against her jailor as she watched Dax writhe even more under the treatment. She could not give in; someone had to be coming. The captain from her ship had to come looking for her… had to come before they all died in the place.

But Gerard did not allow Dax to die- he forced healing droughts down the mage’s throat when his choking sounded final and stitched the wounds to ensure he couldn’t bleed out. How long he hovered at the edge of temptation, she would never really know. The sun did not rise or set here but the Templar stopped once to see the dim candles replaced. But he struggled and he writhed against the demons’ calls until he could finally endure the agony of living through this torture no more…

And as his form began to shift, this beast named Maison immediately struck him down, letting loose an evil grin. It was the first facial expression she’d seen him make since this had begun and his snarling and beaming face sent a poisoned arrow through her heart. He flipped the mangled corpse from his table and hauled Jacob’s screaming body onto it, cutting almost negligently into the man’s face as he began to bind the young mage down.

Maker, no. Not that. Anything but that. Fierce horror and panic washed over her as she realized what the Templar’s goal was. He wasn’t trying to murder them, the prolonged torture served a darker purpose… He wanted them to succumb, to surrender themselves to demons and blood magic, to prove himself right. Discontented with simply destroying their bodies, it was Gerard’s intent to annihilate the structure of their very souls as well.

Once Jacob was secured to the table, Maison turned back to her, directing his voice to Hawke. “You are not like them, they look to you in their fear. You are quite the effective leader.” She could hardly hear him over the chaos of the Fade coursing over her mind, her anxiety bringing demons in droves vying to occupy her. The cool ridges of the button in her hand grounded her against the Fade’s invasion; she just had to keep holding on. Someone was coming.

“Does it matter?” she retorted angrily, still wholly shaken by the Templar’s display with Dax as Jacob struggled furiously against his restraints, groaning and crying with wild eyes staring at the Templar that meant to take everything from him.

“If it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t mean anything,” he answered as he reinforced the chains and took up a knife once again. “Mages succumb to fear. This means everything.”

“A Templar torturing mages until they break?” she shouted incredulously, praying conversation would postpone Jacob’s trial until help came. “This means _nothing_ \- only that you’re a sadist glutting yourself on blood.”

“You can end this, you know,” he finished eerily before he stepped nearer with a band of cloth between his hands. “Give in and I’ll let them go.”

“You attack us, murder us and torture us and you expect me to trust you?” she screeched furiously as she pulled her hands inwards again, struggling once more to free herself so she could claw out his vile eyes.

“How long do you think you can last?” he questioned her and took her chin in his bloody hands, forcing her to look at him, to really look at him. His face was devoid of expression as he attempted to reason with her, “Do you really think it isn’t going to happen anyway?”

Her lip quivered violently as demons howled her ears, before she let her voice grind out a solemn, “No,” as much for Gerard as for the monsters battling for her mind.

He nodded in his approval and tied a gag around her mouth. Then he left, his steps echoing away only to pause at her companions, likely tying gags about their lips as well. Jacob’s mouth was left free and he began a nearly maniacal recitation of the Chant. Hawke listened to footsteps heralding the Templar’s departure before she valiantly struggled against the cuffs, letting the metal cut deep bloody wounds into her wrists, fearing that she’d rip her own hands off before she could escape and then abruptly changed tactics, hoping perhaps that she could. Losing one hand would free the other after all. Bracing herself, she focused on trying to use the dull edge of the cuff to sever the appendage. The gag barely muffled the whimpers she made until she finally collapsed back against the pillar, the rounded bevel refusing to cut through the bone.

Choking herself against the rune collar, her will was summoned only to have it brutally stripped away once again as she continued to attempt her magic, effectively torturing herself with the same rugged efficiency the Templar would use. Time held no meaning here and she fought against her bindings until a restless sleep overtook her for only moments at a time. Demons screamed into her mind as she equally resisted the siren’s call, clutching at Hoppers’ eye as she swore she wouldn’t let Gerard win. She persevered, struggled against the beasts that tried to invade her mind… for them, she told herself as she contemplated her captive brethren. The mages in this waking nightmare could only follow by her example so she would not cave… _could_ not cave to temptation.

Or it would all be over.

Because after all, wasn’t that the whole point of the rebellion? To prove that they could survive, that they could resist temptation when things got hard?

Hours passed before heavy boots clunked back down the stair, prompting a frenzied Jacob to simply begin screaming the word ‘no’ over and over again. Before his torture could even begin, Jacob’s frame began that terrible unholy twist as well. Having seen firsthand the misery he’d been sentenced to, he succumbed. His body had hardly begun to destroy itself when Gerard struck him down with that same terrible indifference, leaving a cold, mangled corpse behind as both a threat and a promise for his next victim. He released the chains and pushed Jacob’s corpse upon Dax, letting their bodies rest against one another in a final moment of brotherhood.

He had only just finished hauling Vera’s struggling body onto the table when he strode over to Hawke, crouching to remove her gag. “Have you reconsidered my offer?”

In lieu of words, she used her free mouth to spit in Gerard’s face, feeling that was a more than adequate answer. He sighed and pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at her saliva while his face betrayed absolutely nothing. Suddenly her head cracked to the side, and her burned cheek slapped against the pillar behind her. Only the sharp ache on the other side indicated that he’d backhanded her. Water poured from her eyes as she bit back a wounded yowl, begging the demons in her mind to quiet. Loathing her quivering voice, she asked, “Why are you doing this?”

“Because this is a test,” he replied easily, bringing the bloody knife up to casually clean beneath his fingernails and ignoring Vera’s muffled cries. The flat of the blade softly swiped across her face, placing a small bit of gore on her cheek. Then he touched the point to the bruise taking shape on her cheek, pushing only enough so she’d feel how sharp it was. She remained still, worried that any movement on her part would result in the edge breaking through her skin.

“So tell us how to pass it,” she begged him, trying to avoid moving her face as she asked. But the answer was obvious, and she’d known it before he even opened his lips again.

He leveled his gaze at her, brown eyes piercing through her as he regarded her sorry state. “By not succumbing,” he responded, drawing the blade away from her face and standing before her once again.

More hated tears leaked down her face as she coughed, “And what’s our prize?”

“You meet the Maker with your soul intact.” His subsequent sigh sounded almost on the edge of boredom. “But your kind does not pass. You cannot. But I still hope… I will always hope for you.”

The bitter laughter that bubbled from her lips wracked her frame until only the pillar was supporting her. It was violent, uncontrollable hysteria that left her wheezing for air before she was finally able to ask, “Hope drives you to this?”

“Hope is all we have,” he replied as he turned away, ignoring her muffled, near-hysterical laughter. Then he turned and set upon Vera.

She was an exceptionally tall woman, her feet dangled from the table and twitched something terrible as Gerard began. The beast began his routine, removing portions of the mage’s flesh and cauterizing the wounds so the game should not end. He systematically destroyed every last vestige of humanity that Vera possessed, cutting her open and apart with a surgeon’s precision even as he cured her, wounding only to heal and begin again. His fingers tangling inside her soft body, she cried for release. Vera endured- continued until her mind fell into crushing anoesis before she finally turned. Her bones twisted and broke in a terrible choking call before Maison struck her down before the demon’s terrible reign could truly begin.

Then it was Lydia’s turn.

He deafened her with a thin nail to start, stating simply to Hawke that mages heard only demons- so why allow them anything else? He shot a meaningful look back at Hawke before he ran the knife over her in earnest.

Lydia screamed, begged and pleaded for release that Gerard would not give her as he continued her torture. Her belly was splayed open, her innermost workings exposed to the open air even as she was force-fed potions that would prolong her suffering. Hawke could see organs and muscles twitching in abject pain as the mage continued to defy Gerard’s intent during her own conscious vivisection… Lydia struggled hopelessly to preserve her soul through what must have been the most insurmountable agony.

As Lydia screamed and wailed until her voice broke, demons forced themselves against Hawke’s mind, attempting to take control of her body as fiercely as Gerard attempted to rape her psyche. She wrenched her fingers over the button in her hand and forced her mind to withstand the onslaught. That motion stilled her brain, calmed her soul from the blitz… and she resisted once more.

Then without a word he left, inexplicably leaving Hawke and Lydia alone together, perhaps to impart further upon Hawke the suffering she’d soon partake in or to reinforce the hopelessness. Before those bootsteps sounded up the stairs, he gave Hawke a long look as though he were contemplating returning the gag. It hardly mattered, as Lydia couldn’t hear her anyways. Regardless, they were blessedly alone for a while. Gerard had left for some Maker-damned reason and Hawke was left with a deafened Lydia, who sobbed and groaned as she futilely tried to survive… but who would want to live through this?

“We’ll get out of here, I promise. Just hold on,” Hawke sobbed even as she strained against her shackles to reach and take Lydia’s twitching hand within her own, prompting another spurt of blood to run over her fingertips. The deafness left the mage unaware of Hawke’s assurances. Even knowing she couldn’t hear, Hawke repeated the phrase like a mantra, praying to the Maker above all else that Lydia could know salvation. Lydia’s perseverance was nothing short of astonishing. She held on to that benign spirit lingering in her broken body for longer than even Hawke would have forgiven.

Sighing softly, the bloody mage’s head rolled gently to the side, red-rimmed eyes gazed tiredly at her. “I’m going to get you out of here, Hawke,” she murmured and offered Marian a sad smile, exposing her broken white teeth.

“No!” she choked, forgetting that Lydia could not hear her in her horror. “You cannot do this…”

“I’m so sorry you’ll be alone,” she continued undeterred with a peaceful laugh. “Promise me you’ll stop this son of a bitch- if anyone can kill him, it’s you.” Lydia added with a choke as she began that wretched telltale twitch. “Pray for me.”

She was deaf to Hawke’s cries for her to hold on for just a bit longer, that help had to be coming, that she couldn’t rend the fabric of her soul just to save one measly life. Her body warped, bones snapping and healing as her skin ripped and stretched. Her head twisted unnaturally upon her shoulders, her chin almost pointed toward the ceiling as the abomination rose from her corpse and her huge, mangled hands ripped the chains holding her down like mere paper.

Lydia, or what had been Lydia for it was not she anymore, rose from the table and stumbled toward the helpless Hawke. Unable to cast, unable to even raise her own hands in simple defense, Hawke stared her inevitable death in its destroyed, snarling face and raised her proud chin, grateful at least that it would deny Gerard the opportunity to destroy her own soul as well. But instead of lunging for her throat, it wrapped its hands around her neck and pried the runic necklace away, snarling as the hated collar burned against the abomination’s intensely unrestrained magic. Then violent claws wrenched apart the chains from the cuffs restraining her hands.

Marian backed away and the abomination reached out to grab her foot, hauling the terrified mage closer and pounded once hard on her stomach with a painfully misshapen fist. Using the trickle of energy that had returned to her, she used her will to force the abomination away in an uninhibited burst that shook the very foundations of the building. Its eyes flashed at her, blood red and then back to Lydia’s deep brown for only a single moment.

“Avenge me… please,” it rasped painfully and plunged a sharply-taloned hand into its chest. The terrible screech let loose from its disfigured mouth curdled Hawke’s very blood. It struggled, letting its body gyrate and twitch in some horrific dance before it pulled its hand out and dropped a pulsating sack at her feet and collapsed to the floor, still and unmercifully dead.

Hawke gingerly picked up Lydia’s heart with her right hand as she ran her left hand frantically over the metal button, feeling tears prick her eyes when she noticed the organ was still deep red and viciously pumped black blood from it once… twice… three times… before it stopped and went cold in her hand. Tears fell freely from her eyes as she let loose a painful sob. Lydia had used her final moments of sanity to rip out her own heart before the corruption could take it, too. That had to mean something for the fate of her soul… it just had to. The dark blood stung her fingers fiercely but she had nothing to wipe them on. She was still left nude in this dank pit with nothing left to save her. Naked, without any protections or even mere clothing…

Clothing… she needed clothing, she realized as her brain sputtered back into higher functioning. Darting up the stairs from the basement, she saw the remnants of robes and staves burning in the fireplace, expensive enchantments reduced to so much smoldering glass. She rushed to where she knew the bedrooms to be before she stumbled onto the sight of Delia, the little girl staring blankly skyward, her tiny neck wrenched at an impossible angle, her still blood rendering her skin into an unholy white, and her face frozen forever in a terrible scream.

Dull aching brought about the realization that she still clutched the button from Delia’s stuffed bunny painfully within her fingers, choking the blood from the digits as she forced her hand to relax… but she couldn’t let it go. Not while Ser Hoppers stared at her with his wooden button eye, accusing her of the fate of the broken souls below her feet. Not when she knew without doubt that his little metal eye had somehow preserved her sanity in a place where there was none to be found.

Heart pounding harder than she could ever remember, not from the flight from Lothering nor from facing the Arishok or even Meredith, she threw open doors until she found a bedroom and searched the dilapidated wardrobe for anything that could possibly fit her. Her best bet was a massive fencer’s shirt and a pair of almost too large breeches, which she cinched with a belt, knotting the leather roughly when it became clear the buckle wouldn’t close tightly enough. They would offer her absolutely no protection should Gerard return.

She found a pair of boots as well and laced them as tightly as she could to compensate for the overlarge size. Her hands couldn’t stop shaking and every sound she heard brought a corresponding pang of terror that Gerard had returned for her. Afraid to leave the bedroom and return to the greater house, to the sight of Delia’s dainty corpse, Hawke threw open the shuttered windows, wincing at the bright light that threatened to blind her. She climbed onto the pane and dropped to the ground in a full sprint, letting the vast fields surrounding that wretched red hill offer her some small amount of cover when she realized even her horse was gone.

She finally made it back to the city at dusk. She lingered at the edge of Wycome until night’s full effect overtook the city’s streets, hoping the darkness would disguise the physical remnants she carried of her time with Gerard, would hide the blood sticking over her hands and the heavy cuffs on her bloody wrists. The burns upon her face and slashes from her struggles would only mark her as a fugitive. The Guard likely would not help her, as she’d be unable to explain neither who she was nor why she and her companions had been marked as targets. She even couldn’t heal them, not with that singular point in her mind in such uncontrollable disarray. A single spell from her in this state could spin wildly out of control, as evidenced by her attempt to keep Lydia at bay. Hawke had always maintained enough calm to keep her magic solidly under her command with only a few noteworthy exceptions. With the demons screeching so loudly in her jumbled, wounded mind, a simple healing spell could just as easily flay the skin from her body as mend the cuts closed.

Hawke ran straight for the docks, cursing that she didn’t know how long she had remained captive and praying that _The Veiled Blue_ had not yet departed. But her trusty good luck, it seemed, had left her sometime between Cosazure and Wycome.

The ship had sailed, the captain remained true to his word. Had he even waited?

Maker, what the Blight was she supposed to do now? Stranded without money or even proper clothing, she was trapped in painful proximity to Gerard and her mana and mind had yet to recover. Even her arrival to Kirkwall had not been marked with such abject privation- they’d at least had hope and scraps of food. No amount of mental spinning allowed her imagination to even contemplate finding that here.

She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to focus. Steeling herself, she dropped her hair over her face and let the long sleeves of her shirt hide the cuffs before she approached a wealthier looking couple. Heavily, she bumped into the man, apologizing for her clumsiness as she deftly unhooked his money purse. He cursed at her and spun away with his companion, berating her fiercely as he departed, effectively dispelling any remorse she may have had for the action when he called her a filthy dog lord.

The man hadn’t been carrying much, likely why he hadn’t noticed her lifting it. It wasn’t enough for new clothing but it was enough to get her off the streets for a few nights while she tried to think. She searched the streets for an inn and narrowly avoided two Templars exiting a shop. Helmets concealed their identities from her as they casually talked with one another.

Without sparing a thought, she sprinted into a side-street before they could spot her and hid behind a barrel until she heard them pass, blessedly unaware of the cowering mage less than thirty paces from them. She dared a quick look as they walked, the alley’s dark concealing her light eyes from detection. They looked well-kempt, like Maison had been. So the Circle was likely still keeping them… and Maison as well.

Oh, _fuck_ , that was bad. That was bad news at the peak of Bad News Mountain on the scenic island of Now We’re Utterly Fucked. If Maison had been doing the Circle’s bidding and wasn’t a lone, demented, lunatic sadist, then she needed to get out of Wycome now. But how?

There were no options left, she had to get off the open street. She rose and met the shrewd stare of a single man, raven-haired with glittering black eyes. His meaningful gaze left no doubt in her mind that he’d seen her run and knew exactly what she was. Spinning on her heel, she raced away from him and continued searching frantically for an inn, losing the man before she finally found one and entered. The innkeeper looked at her warily as he exchanged her coin for a room, noting her haggard appearance and throwing in a bath for free. She was grateful even though the proprietor had only been trying to save his sheets. She hadn’t bathed in she couldn’t even begin to guess how long and imagined her stench had to be off-putting. Hurrying to her room, she barricaded herself inside before she sunk into the corner and watched the door.

Maker, don’t let them come, she kept whispering to herself as terror threatened to consume her once more. Please don’t let them come. But as she heard the tumblers in the lock turn, she summoned flames into her hands, her anxiety causing them to flare menacingly before they extinguished, not from Silence but from her own jangled nerves.

_I can help you,_ they called to her again. _Just let me in._

It would be easy to give in, so easy to let the demon into her body. But she remembered Lydia’s final words, her plea for avengement- remembered her terrible sacrifice, remembered Fenris and Delia and Anders, and rejected the demon’s haunting offer yet again even as it growled loudly in her mind. It was so hard, so horribly difficult to fight when surrender would be so much easier. But she hadn’t made it this far to spit in the faces of all the people who’d aided her, who’d sacrificed for her, who’d laid down their very lives for her. Her hand slipped back into her pocket and she touched her finger to Hoppers’ eye, and the demons quieted again.

The door creaked open and revealed the man from the alley. He entered and closed the door softly behind him before he swaggered over to sit on the small desk next to her, pouring a glass of water from the pitcher and silently offering it to her.

“You look like you’ve had quite the shitty day, mage,” he sneered confidently as she took the glass and downed its contents in a series of heavy gulps. She hadn’t realized how terribly thirsty she was until the water touched her tongue. The thirst caused her to choke on the final mouthful, sputtering the last drops onto her stolen shirt before the man nodded and continued. “You may call me Rajun. I could have a proposition for you.”

The way he’d called her mage told her that this man was no sympathizer. His garments spun another story of his likely criminality and she wanted nothing to do with it. “You may want to wait for my bath, irresistible as I may be,” she said dismissively, forcing her voice into evenness even as she cowered pitifully in the corner.

“We both know I saw you ducking those Templars. You’re clearly a mage so answer me this, what manner of mage are you?” Rajun asked. She acknowledged the man painfully, realizing the truth in his words. But a proposition meant he wouldn’t sell her out to the Templars- not yet, in any case. So she took a risk. After all, there was nothing left to be lost.

“Spirit Healer, elementals, force magic…” she answered as she inched toward the near proximity of the window in case she’d judged the man wrong. “Why?”

He noted her shifting and responded in kind, placing himself between the mage and the window in case she made a break for it. “Good. I need a healer on my ship,” he answered easily and lazily took a seat on the pane. “Someone who can make sure my cargo makes it to Tevinter.”

“Cargo?” she asked dumbly before the shock of realization fell over her. The clothes, Tevinter, that unforgivable smirk. “Slaver!” she spat as she forced her legs to push her up against the wall. While her height was hardly daunting in comparison to the man before her, the sensation of her feet solidly beneath her once again brought her a sense of security regardless of the wobble in her weakened muscles, something she’d lacked ever since she’d awakened in that wretched basement. Her spite pulled her effectively from the terror that had consumed her for days.

Rajun practically flew from his perch and slapped his hand over her mouth. “Keep it down!” he hissed angrily. She jerked away, the sudden movement bouncing her head heavily off the wall. Dazed, she contemplated dispatching him before he could call out before he quietly said, “You need to get the fuck out of Wycome and don’t have any way to do it. The Templars have the right to check any ship they want, but mine ain’t in the port. I’m your only way out.”

“I don’t work with slavers,” she growled dangerously and brought her hands up to shove Rajun away, summoning her will to exaggerate the blow, not caring if a flare from the Fade could rip his body sloppily apart.

He backed away easily before her hands could connect and made no effort to reengage her, stating rather simply, “If there weren’t a demand, sweetheart, I wouldn’t be supplying.”

“I don’t engage in the buying and selling of _people_ ,” she snarled back viciously.

“Suit yourself. Have fun with the Templars,” he shrugged and turned to leave, taking his hated lifeline to the threshold of her room as he raised his hand to open the door and leave her to whatever future that fickle bitch Fate had in store.

“Wait…” she whispered and his hand dropped from the doorknob. Self-hatred flooded her for even considering this despicable offer but to call her situation desperate would have been an insulting understatement. After escaping Gerard, after resisting demons for so long, it pained her to make a deal with a different sort of monster. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the circle of metal, caressing the tiny button to draw some sort of inhuman strength from it as she murmured, “I don’t use blood magic.”

He turned back to her, smiling easily… like he was just a normal man and not a purveyor of unwilling flesh. “Nobody’s asking you to. I just need my cargo to make it to Tevinter intact.”

“I won’t be harassed,” she said with a furrow of her brow, feeling the button grow warm in her fingers as she absently stroked it again. “I want my own room.”

“Done,” he replied and extended his hand to seal their deal. His hand hung in empty midair for a moment as she gazed into Hoppers’ single eye. She was not a victim, it told her. They had seen too much together for that to be true. A quick mental inventory revealed a list of things she’d need in Tevinter so she pushed her luck to see if she could turn the tides and met his cold eyes with her bright piercing blue.

“And you’ll pay me,” she added and clutched the metal harder.

“You’re trying your luck, woman,” he sneered at her once again, that easy smile moving back into malice as quickly as it had taken to satisfaction.

“Those slaves are worthless if they don’t make it to Tevinter,” she reminded him perceptively, drawing her body back to its full height as she regarded him. She pushed her hair away from her face, the burn stinging when her sticky hair clung to the wound. It was a deliberate move, meant to display to the slaver that, above all, she was a creature that understood survival. Rajun arched an eyebrow, seeming to rapidly reassess the unafraid woman he was suddenly bargaining with. “What have they got?” she pressed. “Plague? The wasting? Scurvy?”

He dropped his head and grumbled an irritated, “I don’t know. Our healer ate it to guards in Highever and the cargo has been sick ever since.” Cargo. That’s all these people were to him. What a sick bastard. However, his defeated gesture told her something darker so she took the advantage, nodding knowingly and feeling her mind begin to tick back into gear as she began negotiating in earnest. “But it’s spreading, isn’t it?” she asked.

He eyed her warily and replied with a terse, “Yes.”

“So pay me,” she answered, noting with a sort of sick glee at the way Rajun’s nostrils flared, before she added, “Or you can have fun with a ship full of your dead slaves and crew. I’m sure you’ll find loads of apostate Spirit Healers willing to work with slavers before it takes you, too.”

His black eyes narrowed into dangerous slits and he replied, “My men get cuts of the sales. Three percent. I’ll give you two. You’d stand to make quite a bit of coin.”

Her stomach turned at the idea of such direct profiting off the slaves’ lives… but her mind was blessedly active again and spinning stories she dare not reveal. This man needed her and she could use that need to serve not only her own purposes but also the possibility of a greater good. “No cuts,” she responded quickly. “I just want a flat fee.”

He shook his head warily. “It doesn’t work that way, darling. Profits depend on the auctions. But I’ll advance you fifteen sovereigns, you can refuse the remainder of your cut when we get to port if gold offends you so greatly.” His sarcasm was a welcome boon, reminding her of the woman she’d been before she traversed into this Blighted city.

“Forty,” she countered, finally feeling somewhat like herself again… well, if she had ever been a woman who had bargained with slavers, that is.

“My men don’t clear forty on an average haul,” he griped angrily and began pacing like a caged tiger. “I cannot advance that.”

“I should be paid more,” she argued her point with a blessed flare of fire from her fingertips. Using magic with Templars in such close proximity was a stupid move, she knew- but her life could be forfeit if she failed to secure this treacherous bargain. Her loathing of his chosen profession, however, finally brought enough calm over her mind to allow her to control her abilities once more. “I am a specialist after all,” she added with a snide wink.

“As well as a fugitive on the run,” he added shrewdly but he eyed the flames in silent contemplation.

“I’m a fugitive, I’ll give you that,” she smirked, ignoring how the motion irritated her face as she bid the flames to flare briefly, “but I am a dangerous dragon of a fugitive who you are asking to ignore her staunch, burny righteousness.”

When he saw that she did not intend to budge, he amended his offer. “Five percent. I’ll advance twenty gold and get you some decent armor as well. It will come out of your cut- if you don’t clear your cut, you’ll stay onboard until you do. But you heal them first. Final offer.”

She considered his rather gracious offer and nodded, asking, “What if they are beyond saving? I’m a healer, not a miracle worker.”

“Then you’ll get nothing,” he said simply. She stared expectantly at him and he glared back at her, both of them understanding the mutual dissatisfaction. Finally, he conceded, “Other than a ride to a port near Llomerynn. It’s in Rivain and there isn’t a Circle there, the Templar presence won’t be as pronounced. You’ll at least stand a chance for escape.”

“And the armor. With rune slots.”

He grimaced and said, “Done. We should leave now.” When she made for the door he grasped her arm gently. “There are Templars in the tavern. We should leave through the window.”

She cocked her head at him and mused, “You knew there were Templars here and yet you bargained. Why?”

“Perhaps I’m a sucker for a pretty face,” he replied as he brought his hand up to her cheek, brushing her hair from the burn. She jerked away and he dropped the gesture; but his eyes glittered dangerously, leaving her with little need for speculation at his physical attraction to her. “Mages generally don’t do what they don’t want to. Consider getting you onboard as nothing more than a tactical move.”

“And well played,” she gave him darkly.

“For now,” he added with a lascivious wink, leaving her with little doubt that he’d readily blackmail her into staying at the first opportunity. Shit, he could probably turn on her and sell her in Minrathous if she proved to be trouble.

She ignored his facial tick and opened the window to climb out. She and Rajun crept through the city streets until they reached the outskirts. Every footstep toward the slaver port brought her only more hatred toward her guide. Once outside the city, they took a short break, Hawke’s malnourishment of the last week prompting the slaver to bid her to rest for a moment and regain her strength before they pressed onward. She relaxed against a heavy tree trunk with Rajun taking the opposite side. Silently contemplating the beautiful stars, she let her thoughts amble once more back to the elf she’d gained and lost, then gained and lost, before she finally gained and lost him yet again, wondering if he, too, was somewhere looking up at the same night sky and letting his thoughts flitter to her.

Fenris… the thought of him brought another pang in her heart as she pondered what might have been if she’d allowed herself to simply fall asleep with him, at what may have been if she’d chosen not to run and instead dared to slumber in his arms. She wondered what he was doing; if he even gave any thought to the baby they could have conceived together. Making a solemn promise to herself, she vowed to find a way to send word to Starkhaven, to let him know that his lineage had not been continued from their night together, that any magic in his future offspring wouldn’t be a result of her own genealogy’s interference. As she sat quietly with Rajun, she could practically feel the heat of Fenris’ raging disapproval from wherever he may be now as she began down this the road of this appalling and shameful compromise.

But the cogs in her mind were already turning furiously as her tortured mind began to finally start its recovery. She ran her thumb over the button in her pocket and began plotting in earnest about what she could do next. After all, they were only halfway to Minrathous now and if there was anything she’d learned during her oceanic trek to Tevinter, it’s that tides and luck can shift when you least expect it.

* * *

_End Chapter 5_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to my awesome betas, BuriedBeneath and AmericanCorvus. 
> 
> Sorry about the torture, I tried to keep it relatively ungraphic-ish. I generally dislike writing it and tried to keep it as tame as possible and still get the horror across. I solemnly promise that it was not just an excuse to write pages upon pages of people getting disemboweled.
> 
>  
> 
> As always, feel free to review, drop me a PM, or hit me up on twitter (omnomnomanon).


	6. Riptide

Nemesis  
Chapter 6- Riptide

“ _With all due respect, sharks are only surprising if they catch you on land.”  
Marian Hawke_  


“And there you go,” Rajun smirked wryly at her and pulled his lock picks away to reveal the open and benevolent expanse of broken and torn skin beneath.

The hated cuffs fell from her wrists and clunked heavily against the floor as she breathed an equally weighted sigh of relief. He crouched casually between her legs while she sat perched almost daintily upon a trunk at the foot of his bed. The door leading to the rest of the ship was closed for her sense of privacy as well as Rajun’s lewd comfort at having a female crewmember so close at hand. Fortunately, if she’d learned anything about the man before her in the half-day they’d known one another, it was that Rajun was a shrewd businessman first and a slaver second. As a result, she suspected that he would avoid anything untoward so long as they remained on land and the chance for her to escape remained a viable option.

Once they were on the water, however, Hawke rightfully worried that could change.

His quarters were, in a single word, massive. A table large enough to seat six for a meal or Wicked Grace waited in a small alcove, the bed was large enough to host a small orgy without overcrowding and a small private bath adorned the suite. A single bookcase displayed dozens of thin legers, likely cargo manifestos and dossiers on members of the crew. Everything was bolted to the floor, likely to prevent bad weather or a harsh wave from upending all his belongings.

Realizing he was waiting expectantly for some sort of response, she offered him a grudging, “Thank you,” before her critical eyes regarding her hands in earnest, the dried and coagulating blood rendering her touch slightly gummy as she experimentally tapped them to one another. Rolling her wrists tentatively, the gashes ached and oozed with the beginning stages of infection. Rajun watched raptly as she used her fingers to squeeze thick pus from the wounds until the blood ran dark, pure and red; then with a peaceful summon she closed the cuts, leaving only a light silvery bracelet adorning each wrist where the abhorrent shackles had been. They would fade to nothing in due time… whenever that should pass.

His eyes glittered greedily at the small miracle she’d performed before him. Having spent so much time with other apostates in the recent past, it was easy to forget that magic was a thing of such intangible mystery to the ungifted. “You’re lucky,” Rajun observed casually as he shifted his weight and seated himself on the floor, rocking back to rest his weight on his heels as he regarded her.

He seemed determined to conduct his manner with her in a sort of enforced casualness; while he was clearly in awe of her talents, he was dogged in his resolve to consider her as another mere underling. It was actually comforting in an odd way, to be treated like a mere woman instead of someone who could rip a human asunder with only a wayward thought. She laughed mirthlessly and pulled away before questioning, “Why would you say that?”

He gave her a long look; regarding first the cuffs on the floor and then the angry burn still marring her face. His eyes darkened into something strange and fierce; he stared at the wound until the intense scrutiny had her turning her face away to conceal it from his critical gaze. She wasn’t sure what the look meant- anger? Pity? Compassion? Was he plotting something? Whatever it was that motivated his expression, Hawke had the distinct feeling that it would end poorly for her.

“Men who inflict wounds like that tend to be the fatal kind,” he said bluntly but she heard a soft subtext as he stared, seemingly through her turned cheek and straight to the brand on the opposite side. She heard his unspoken declaration that he was not a man of Maison’s stock but knew from his choice of profession that he was of an even worse sort.

That he considered bartering unwilling flesh better than the torture delivered by the man who had so wounded her only spoke more loudly to the darker notions of his character’s integrity. She closed her eyes as her hatred for the man before her threatened to consume and raze her mind back into the soft earth where she abandoned her companions, splayed open and unburied. Feeling the button in her pocket pressing against her thigh, she brought her mind back to her connection with the Fade and allowed it to temper her anger. Once she made it to Minrathous, she could put this whole sordid ordeal behind her and continue on her mission.

With her wits solidly about her once more, she muttered sarcastically, “I’m sure it’s all a wacky misunderstanding,” she paused and examined her wrists once more, desperately trying to avoid making further eye contact with the captain. “There’s probably a nice ‘Oops! Sorry about the torture,’ card waiting for me back at the inn.”

He rolled his eyes and propped his elbow upon her thigh, resting his chin on his palm as he stared up at her once more in a manner that made her patently uncomfortable. “So are you ever going to tell me your name?” he asked.

Without a thought, she spoke the name that plagued her mind first. “Lydia,” she responded quietly. Her given or family names were all too easily connected with her wanted status with the Chantry and giving Rajun that sort of ammunition against her would have been utterly stupid on her part. Regardless of his seeming friendliness with her, she could not risk thinking of him as anything other than another mortal enemy set upon tearing her down. She’d come too far to make such an unforgivable gaff.

Ignoring her apprehension or perhaps hyper-aware of it, he pressed on. “Do you have a last name, Lydia?”

She’d never known Lydia’s last name and couldn’t conjure one in her mind quickly enough to seem believable. “Not one you need concern yourself with,” she answered instead with a cold politeness as she turned her gaze to the window, back to the shore that held the city that had brought her to the point of anxiety where she could sit before this man and not simply rip his throat out.

With a quirk of his eyebrow he gestured for her to rise before turning his focus to the trunk she’d been using as a bench. The lock was expertly undone- she hadn’t even seen him produce a key- and opened to reveal not gold or valuables but layer upon layer of clean clothing. Pulling out a few garments, he passed them to her. “It would be a waste of soap to try and clean those, Lydia. I never could understand why anyone would want to wear white,” he mused with a smirk as he regarded the many stains covering her clothing where the blood had seeped through the chains on her wrists and run down her face to soak the neckline.

She clutched the clothing closer as he led her to her room, which shared a wall with his own. He produced a small skeleton key and said, “These are your quarters. A bath should be waiting for you. You can’t be treating the crew while you look and smell like death itself. Be quick, you have things to do.”

She nodded and ducked inside, shutting the door solidly behind her. Leaning wearily against the heavy door, she took a moment to breathe deeply and once again steady her mind from the whirlwind she’d been swept up into. Her breath seemed like the only thing she could hope to control in this environment. Was she insane for even considering this? No, she was desperate- there it was, plain and simple. She was a creature of survival and while she wasn’t making deals with demons, this felt sickeningly close enough.

Her quarters on _The Bloodied Bandit_ were more spacious than those on _The Veiled Blue_ but she found herself uncaring. The first thing on her mind was the promised bath, so desirable that she nearly collapsed to her knees in thanks when she saw the tiny tub filled nearly to the brim with steaming water- first taking a basin of the water and using a sponge to scrub away days of grime, sweat and blood from her skin before she submerged herself within the tub to cleanse her weary body of the remaining filth. She soaked and scrubbed for nearly an hour before heaving herself out of the cooling water and donning Rajun’s breeches and oversized shirt, which hung around her like a lover’s embrace, exposing either a shameful expanse of her chest or falling stubbornly off her shoulder without even a breast band to protect her modesty.

Fastening his pants with a belt, she slipped Hoppers’ eye into the threadbare pocket and caught a quick sight of herself in the mirror as she made for the door once more. The burn was char black with tiny blisters pocking the edges. Hesitantly, she brought her fingers to probe the damage. The scab, softened from her bath, felt like damp black soil against her smooth flushed cheeks. A soft application of pressure brought a blindingly sharp pain on the edges. As a test, she forced her cheeks into a wide smile; the abject pain set her eyes to watering almost uncontrollably. Fortunately, the scab was moist enough to not simply tear away and leave the wound exposed, flexing with the movement to continue its protection. Blinking the tears from her eyes, she breathed a sigh of relief- at least the brand hadn’t damaged the nerves. She could deal with the superficial aspects of it later- Rajun was expecting her.

Opening the door revealed said slaver captain waiting on her with utter impatience, foot tapping and eyes rolling. “Follow me, princess,” he growled as he led her deeper into the bowels of the hull. The path to the slaves’ quarters was a maze in itself, likely to disorient any trying to make a break for it, but before she thought to question it, Rajun offered, “I commissioned this ship from an Orlesian shipbuilder who specialized in prison vessels. Cost a fortune but the craftsmanship has paid for itself thrice over. You’ll want to memorize the paths.” He smirked darkly and added, “You don’t want to run into the things that go bump in the night,” before unchaining an iron gate and leading her through, grabbing a small oil lantern on the way.

The condition of the slaves and their quarters was beyond abysmal. The acrid stench of sour vomit and bodily waste stung her eyes and she had to fight the urge to gag. The slaves themselves were clearly starving and sick; she had to at least wonder how much of their state was due to illness and how much due purely to their hopeless situation and general mistreatment. Steeling herself, she ducked down to examine one of the captives, a woman whose age was masked by layers of caked on dirt and the dried vomit on her chin. Even through that and in this dim light, she could see the yellowing of her eyes and the sallow quality of her complexion. Jaundice, whatever was afflicting them was at least slightly hepatic but that hardly narrowed down the possibilities.

“The crew looks like this, too?” she asked Rajun quietly as she rose from the woman and regarded her unlikely host.

“About a quarter of them,” he answered, holding the lantern aloft to spread the dim light’s reach to hauntingly illuminate the frightened, worried eyes huddled in the corners. “They can’t eat. We’ll lose them all if something isn’t done soon.” They all shared the same sickly pallor and air of desperation. Her heart ached for them as they regarded her with fear and trepidation. Her status a healer would do nothing to comfort them, she realized. It just meant they would survive this trip to meet a fate many considered worse than death.

Sighing, she ventured deeper into the lower deck and crouched next to the sickest slave she saw, figuring the latter stages of the ailment would make him easier to diagnose than his marginally heartier brethren. The whites of his eyes were yellowed and dull and his skin pulled sadly away from his face in soft folds as though his own body was conspiring to escape this horrible Void he’d been sentenced to. He began to struggle, letting loose a weak and panicked screech and he tried to flail away when she touched her hands to his shackled wrists; but before she could even attempt a word to soothe him, Rajun’s boots stomped to her side and the slaver delivered a sharp punch to the man’s jaw. The man’s wild vocalizations quieted to sorrowful, pitiful whimpers as she watched the blood pour from his mouth and tears leak from his eyes as a lone broken tooth tumbled from his lip and onto the filthy floor in a wave of scarlet saliva.

She turned to Rajun and snapped, “That isn’t helping!” Rajun shrugged and backed away, raising his hands in mock surrender as she continued her examination. The slave was clearly malnourished, the sharp angles of his delicate bone-structure easily discernable along the lines of his ribs and collar. Focusing inward, she beseeched spirits to assist in her diagnosis until the nature of the illness was revealed to her, a small bug from the water that had set his weak stomach to violently turning. The illness was something that would afflict a healthy person for only a day or so… but combined with an inadequate maritime diet and, in the case of the slaves, abysmal living conditions it indeed could be fatal to those beneath the deck in this dark and futile pit.

The urge to obliterate this hole in a magnificent supernova was only barely repressed as she focused her energy, calling on the spirits of the Fade to aid her, and healed the man from the sickness that had stricken him. Clearly, if they had been better tended to, the virus would not have taken such a dramatic toll. In truth, she didn’t doubt for a moment that Rajun’s crew would survive the ailment and pulled through on their own now that they were once again landside. She rose from the slave, who looked at her with a mixture of gratitude and betrayal before subtly spitting more blood, this time upon her overlarge boots.

Rajun leaned closer to the slave to observe the clearing of his eyes and fortification of his body. “By the Maker, you did it! You really did it!” he gasped in strange childish wonder, so peculiar from a man like him in a place like this.

But his astonishment only irritated her further. She wanted to slap him for invoking the deity; the Maker clearly had no place in what was happening here. Instead, she held her hand rigidly at her side, subconsciously flexing her fingers to prevent her hand from curling into an angry fist. “It is very serious,” she ground out in a voice very nearly not her own. “I’ll need to treat everyone on the ship immediately- even the people who do not appear to be sick,” she lied uneasily, knowing that her continued usefulness was likely the key to not ending up in the hull with the slaves. “You’ll need to dump all your water reserves and replenish. Barrels, too.”

“It’s in the water?” he asked and let out a long line of cursing that, had she not known a few pirates in her time, would have set her to blushing.

She answered, “If it wasn’t before, it is now and this,” she waved her hand across the slaves’ hovel, “this needs to change. I can heal them but this close to illness, they’ll just get sick again. I’m astonished your boat isn’t crawling with disease. If you want them to survive and fetch decent coin in Minrathous, they’ll need to be at the very least fed and cleaned properly.”

“Decent coin, eh?” Rajun’s self-satisfied smirk shone like a demon’s aura in the darkness. “Those profits are starting to look pretty good to you, are they?”

She started to reply that she was worried only about clearing her advance but stilled her tongue, moving instead to the next slave and working her magic over him. Rajun silently supervised her as she began tending to the mass of filthy bodies, the man unwilling to trust such a wildcard amongst his stock. Apart from the slaver’s heavy gaze, Hawke felt another set of eyes boring into her- the second gaze sparking the Fade’s alertness, causing it to instinctively swirl through her to ready her against potential attack. Stubbornly ignoring the eerie sensation of being so heavily scrutinized, she silently divined its direction as she continued healing the slaves with dogged efficiency.

When she’d treated roughly half the slaves, fatigue began to set in. She cursed the residual weakness that afflicted her- prior to her captivity under Maison, she could have gone twice as long without needing a potion or rest- and bid her overseer to find some lyrium potions. As soon as Rajun left, she turned her head to seek out her other observer. In the dark, all that was discernable was his squalid filth and brilliant fury. Abject hatred radiated from him in waves and she was for only a brief moment grateful that he was chained to the wall, lest he lunge for her throat with his teeth, feral as he looked.

With a quick glance to the stair to ensure Rajun was not immediately returning, she made her way over to the man and ducked before him. The moment she ran her hand over his chest to begin the healing, he cleared his throat and spit on her, the slick glob landing on the cheek her burn was branded into and sliding down to fall on her shirt. She pulled at her sleeve and gingerly blotted the slime from her face before silently commencing her healing once more, observing the other slaves watching her closely as she treated him.

This man that was important, she understood. He had to be their leader- the other slaves looked at him and gauged his reaction, likely the same way the mages had looked to her when she was under Gerard’s control. Even as illness and captivity had begun to emaciate his physique, he was still a brawny man with muscles built from years of use, rock hard with only a soft miniscule layer above. Deep brown eyes yellowed at the edge regarded her with pure loathing but she supposed that should be natural, given the circumstances of their introduction. Her healing concluded she ducked before him, checking over her shoulder to see that they were not being observed.

Uttering her voice in the lowest tone she could, she asked, “What’s your name?”

“Fuck you- that’s my name,” he spat quietly back at her.

“Funny,” she quipped uneasily, “you look more like a Geoffrey.” He growled at her and strained against his chains for a moment before he fell back again, his ire diminished by illness. “How did you get here?” she continued on, unimpressed by his bravado. He met her question with stony silence, glaring at her like she was the lowest form of scum in Thedas… and at the moment, she found it uncomfortably hard to disagree while he was in chains and she assisted his captors.

“I know this is hard to believe but I didn’t really have a lot of options before I got on this ship,” she murmured quietly.

He spat at her once more, this globule landing on Rajun’s shirt- her immoral whore’s uniform- before sneering, “Neither did we.” She winced, realizing her choice of phrasing was beyond poor. Without another word, she moved to the next patient and then the next, working sluggishly until Rajun returned with the potions. No other slaves looked at her directly, just kept staring back at the angry man whose eyes continued to bore hatefully into her back.

A few terrible hours later, she’d completed the healing on the slaves and had returned to the upper levels of the ship to commence treating the crew. The ones who were actually afflicted were easy to fix. The others she simply cast a minor healing spell over, telling them that she was purging a great, bloodcurdling disease from their system. She could have done with some dramatic lighting and spooky sound effects but she made do with what she had to work with, the slavers’ stupidity and fear. Having seen the conditions below, she understood with an even greater urgency the need to keep the gratitude of the gang as much as she hated herself for playing into it.

It took two days of solid healing before the ship was entirely purged of the bug that, as far as anyone was concerned, had threatened the very lives of every soul onboard. While they did not seem to have any affection for her, the crew certainly seemed glad that someone had saved them from their supposed mortal peril. Even Rajun had commented on how fortunate he was to have found Hawke before he’d become symptomatic, though it was unlikely the captain would have fallen ill at all.

Hawke had kept that tidbit of information to herself, hoping that the gratefulness would insulate her further from the obscenities and slurs mumbled under the breaths of the slaves and crew alike. The crew clearly did not like her, did not trust their new Healer or her uncertain magic, and the slaves- well, she supposed they had rather been looking forward to death and disliked having potential release from their fates taken so abruptly from them. She was on a ship filled with people who would string her up at the slightest provocation. Rajun had held to his promise, however, and warned that she was not to be trifled with.

Before he had the chance to depart in order to replace the water barrels, she cornered him and explained that while the immediate threat of disease had passed, a few precautions could prevent it from taking again. She gave an extensive shopping list to Rajun and he dutifully departed from her room to run his errands with a few selected members of the ship. They were still ashore nearly a week later, waiting for Rajun to procure her healing items and supplies before they set sail for Tevinter.

While waiting for the captain’s return, she locked herself in her quarters, opening her door only when the ship’s cook brought her something to eat. The rest of the slavers felt no compulsion to socialize with her and she was grateful. The room was substantially nicer than that which she’d occupied aboard her previous ship. Heavy bookshelves stuffed full to near bursting with text were anchored to the walls. Apparently her predecessor was a bit of a reader. It would help her pass the time on the way to Minrathous and feed the creativity that had seen her out of so many trials before… but that would be later, she hoped. So she took the time to enjoy her isolation from the horror she knew waited beyond her door and used her solitude to commence the long process of repairing her face, her bare feet padding over the floor as she finally drew the strength to creep toward the mirror, the single object she’d been avoiding.

Scars were always difficult to deal with, they’d fade naturally over time, but Gerard had made a good point before he’d branded her. A huge scar would make her much easier to identify. If Maison had been acting at the behest of the Grand Divine and word got out that Hawke bore such a unique and distinct mark upon her face, Circle Templars across Thedas would be able to identify her with minimal effort upon her first sighting. Her eyes assessed the strange mark in the mirror, it curled over her from her forehead to her cheek before arching away and back into her chin in a peculiar, scripted E. But the odd serif on her forehead looked improper for an E. With the sensation of a stone sinking into her stomach, she tilted her head to the side and revealed the brand to her anew.

She cursed loudly, openly yelling and heaving her heavy metal water pitcher violently against the wall, splattering fresh water across the floor. It was an M… for Mage, for Maison- the mark of the maladjusted malefactor who’d maimed her. _Motherfucker_. Unable to contain her rage, a wailing shriek tore from her lips and the demons screeched and ripped at the inside of her mind once more, using her anger as a toehold for their invasion.

She screamed aloud for the demons to quiet, begging them to shut up, clawing at her own ears in desperate hopes of silencing the maniacal shrieking that tore white hot fire through her blood. _I’ll make him suffer for you_ , one called hatefully into her head. Moaning, she heard another snarl, _Even the Void can be purified with fire, just let me in._ Another rasped, _They’ll not stop until they tear you down_. And the final, painful insult, burning into her soul with the same intensity Maison had scorched her face- _She died so you could whore around with slavers,_ the sneer hitting so close to home she wondered if that was an unspoken accusation she leveled against herself.

Then she heard it, the imaginary soft voice whispering into her mind, _Breathe, Marian._ And then the demons went quiet, her mind blissfully silent once more.

Deep breaths brought her back to herself as she clutched at the button in her pocket, the cold metal becoming a single extinguishing teardrop on the inferno of her fury- stabilizing her, soothing her, shielding her and steadying her mind back into peaceful stillness. She breathed like Hoppers told her to, diverting her attention to filling and emptying her lungs until the mindless madness passed and the oxygen left her lightheaded. Dwelling on the past would do her no good here. She was lost but for the fated buttoned-eye’s constant gaze- watching her, judging her, keeping her safe from the fire within her, determined to keep her in control…

Because losing control meant that Maison had won… and she could not allow him to score that victory against her, not after Lydia had destroyed her own soul to see that Hawke survived- not after the others had died so senselessly.

She needed to focus, so she ripped her attention back to the heavy scab. The marking was as delicately ornate as it was extremely distinct and she suspected Gerard had it commissioned specifically for his own sickening purposes. It had to go or she at least had to minimize its appearance as much as possible. She stormed back to the mirror, and grit her teeth with grim determination. The delicate fingernail of her index finger slid beneath the black scab, painfully separating it from the burn it had formed to protect.

Water streamed down her face as she winced in pain and began the painful task of methodically uncovering the ugly wound, removing the stubborn bits of scab that refused to let go until the full extent of Maison’s injury was unforgivably exposed to the harsh cold air. It stung, burned with remembered sensation of that hated iron pressed against her screaming face as she begged for her comrades’ lives. Able to finally see the wound openly, it was clearer than daylight itself that Maison had been the monster and not she- a negligible consolation given the circumstances but a welcome one nevertheless. After a few bracing breaths, she forced her bare hand onto the raw open burn, unable to stifle her painful whimpers at the contact as she focused her energy on healing it.

For everything she hated about this vessel, she could at least be grateful for the ability to use magic openly. She stopped only to rest and eat, spending the better part of two days sitting before her mirror like some vain debutant, scrutinizing her complexion for flaws. Meticulously, she uncovered the brand and healed it over and over again until it remained as simply a ghost on her face, close to invisible unless she gave a flex to her facial muscles and it would reveal itself in only a dull outline, nearly unnoticeable unless someone was actively looking for it.

She wasn’t entirely happy with the end result but had to admit it was a marked improvement over the wound’s previous state and should grant her precious anonymity once more. Perhaps a new tattoo would be looming in her near future. As quickly as the notion came to her, she discarded the idea; facial tattoos had never really been her cup of tea and would have made her easily recognizable once more. After all, hair could be grown, cut and dyed, clothing could be changed and names could be assumed but she only had one face and it would behoove her to keep it as unremarkable as possible.

Just as the itch to escape Wycome became nearly unbearable, Rajun returned with fresh water barrels as well as the items from her shopping list- various herbs, reagents and flowers as well as a few less curative roots and minerals that could be used in poisons- she needed to keep her options open after all. The final item on her list had been a simple metal chain, which she hooked Hoppers’ eye around and tucked safely beneath Rajun’s tunic. The simple item brought peace when her mind went aflutter and Rajun had not questioned her actions, seeming to understand her reluctance as eagerly as he attempted to defy it.

She crafted several simple tinctures that would restore her patients to their full health. Even though the persistent ailment had been rather simply cured in its entirety she pretended that ill effects could resurface and warned Rajun once more of lingering aftereffects for the afflicted and the necessity of her continued care. Fortifying the slaves and slavers was easy once she had the supplies to aid them and within hours of their treatment, the ship was ready to sail.

The first week on the water was uneventful. Rajun’s choice for her quarters ended up serving two purposes. The first, likely the captain’s sole intent was to cloister and protect his healer from the rest of the crew. Only once she had awakened to the sound of picks being set upon her lock, she rose in time to see the door open and a drunk staggered in, eying her like a piece of meat. A quick word and summoning of her will sent the man soaring back into the hallway like a blazing ragdoll. Moments later, a half-nude Rajun flew from his room and laid on the man in a frenzy of kicks and punches before hauling the man to his feet and forcing his eyes to meet the mage’s.

“I thought I made it clear the witch is off-limits,” he snarled into the shaking man’s ear. Wetness bloomed over the front of the slaver’s trousers as he stuttered an affirmative and nodded emphatically. “Tell your friends,” he finished with a final punch, the finishing blow breaking at least one of the drunkard’s teeth, judging from the fragments he spat in a mist of blood. Rajun shoved the man back toward the main hull and returned to his room, sparing her not another glance. It seemed the captain was determined to keep his word to her, which made sense. If he had any intentions of keeping her onboard past Minrathous, it would behoove him to keep her at least somewhat happy.

The second benefit was so unexpected, Rajun couldn’t have even considered it and Hawke hadn’t discovered it herself until her second week afloat on the ocean while she was perusing the books in her quarters. The bookshelves bolted to the wall held a wide variety of texts strapped to them, from volumes on potion-making to trash worthy of Isabela- which she realized when she thumbed through a tome titled The Runemaster’s Slot, foolishly thinking it to be a book about enchantment. She almost laughed when a particular passage leaped to her eyes. While she admittedly was no Runemaster, she was fairly certain that was an uncommon use of a fire rune and if it were, the application had to be much more complicated than _that_.

As ridiculous as some of the books were- she was afraid to even open Fanny and Trixie’s Search for the Double Headed Dragon\- she was grateful to have some means of entertainment within her quarters. It meant she had fewer reasons to leave this haven. She spent the first days of quiet exploring the bookshelves, playing a game of chance against herself while trying to divine the smut from the legitimate educational texts.

Circle Jerk? She didn’t even have to open it to know that one. Lust in the Fade was, disappointingly, a rather enthralling set of instructions detailing various fortification tactics for resisting demons in the Fade, particularly Desire. Unlock Your Psychic Potential in 6 Easy Steps! Well, her limited knowledge of such tomes intuited that step one was something along the lines of “use money to purchase this book.” She pegged Excavating the Dwarven Deep Roads as a textbook but the quickest of glances at the contents had her blushing like a virgin in a whorehouse.

Elements of Fire? She guessed primer but a quick skimming of the first page revealed the protagonist on her knees servicing the antagonist at the edge of an erupting volcano to… increase her understanding of fire. Sure. That made perfect sense. She snorted, if sucking at a man’s prick at the base of a volcano would turn a mage into a fire master, then _everyone_ would be doing it. Hawke could barely contain her laughter until her eyes fell over the words ‘flaming man-geyser,’ at which point she promptly lost it and clapped the book shut, promising herself she’d open it again if she ever needed a good laugh. The book was tucked into her pack, a Feastday present for Isabela if she had ever stumbled across one more perfect.

It was in the next book, Regarding Louis Xanderfeldt’s Treaty on Manufactured Lyrium and its Practical Applications in Weaponsmithing, Welding and Enchantment _,_ riveting as that sounded, that her dreadful luck began to finally change. She couldn’t explain why she reached for it; it clearly was not smut or even something that looked remotely interesting. Perhaps that alone was why she pulled it from the shelf and thumbed casually through the first few pages until the book’s true nature revealed itself to her somewhere around page twenty, where hundreds of pages were cut away to conceal a small, unmarked leather book.

Curious, she mused, and she gingerly lifted the text and flipped it open. Messy handwriting covered the pages front and back, unapologetically betraying the author’s private thoughts. A journal, it must have belonged to the mage who stayed here before her. She took the journal to bed with her, propping herself upon her elbows and resting on her stomach while she read. Greedily, she consumed the book’s secrets, drinking them in with her eyes as she slaked her thirst for knowledge about her mysterious predecessor and the ship she had found herself on.

His name had been Ark, an apostate who meandered his way into the slavers’ midst with his brother, a rogue named Faustino, though she couldn’t be sure if the kinship was called such through blood or mere extended cooperation, given their vastly differing names. Most of it was little more than day to day detailing of the ship’s goings-on peppered with the occasional literary pining for some woman named Opal, likely the man’s wife, who seemed to be the simultaneous recipient of his undying affection and endless loathing. The crew bitched bitterly about their shares, though the author had enough experience to know they’d get no better elsewhere.

_5 Pluitanis_

_Harvey has contracted yet another case of the rash. We’ve been asea for nearly a month and no one else aboard is ill. I shudder to think about where he keeps getting it._

That entry had her laughing until tears threatened to take her. She and Anders had treated Isabela for so many cases of the rash that even the pirate had the grace to be embarrassed over it. Hawke joked that had it not been for having two competent healers constantly harrying themselves over her health and doting on the mischievous slattern’s well being, Isabela’s venereal diseases stood to rally together and create some kind of genital-shriveling superbug. That had earned the mage a solid smack on the back of her head, playfully administered by the pirate who knew the jest was made in fun and not malice. But if the woman she’d seen in Cosazure was any indicator, the pirate was beginning to slow down like perhaps her wild streak was drawing to a close, unlikely as that seemed.

_16 Nubulis_

_Warren and Rajun are going at it about the damned books again. Rajun is so fucking protective over those things- it’s all a numbers game to him. Now Warren’s threatening to haul off and take his crew with him. Seems odd for those two to partner up in the first place, considering how much they can’t stand each other. I asked around yesterday and apparently Warren owes Rajun something deep, more than a little money… Rajun knows something big, something to do with a slaver named Cassius, and he’s using it to keep Warren in line. But from the sound of it, Warren’s sick of being under Rajun’s thumb._

Warren… that wasn’t the man’s first mention. He was the first mate aboard the vessel. It was unsurprising that Rajun would resort to blackmail but the mage’s writing reaffirmed her desire to keep her true identity secret. But Rajun’s strange obsession with his bookkeeping drew her attention. So far as she knew, he was the only slaver who kept meticulous records. She smirked and continued ahead, skimming the pages until she reached the final entry, written only a few weeks ago.

_22 Ferventis_

_Warren is dead. Has been since we picked up that merchant/passenger ship outside Cosazure. Rajun replaced him with Victor without any sort of hesitation. After all the fighting between those two, I’ve got to say it’s more than a little suspicious. The crew is uneasy and Stefan has all but accused Rajun of his brother’s murder. If Rajun would kill his first mate, then none of us are safe._

_I need to get off this damn boat. I’m getting to old for this shit. We’re stopping in Highever next for a day or so to get some stuff to treat the slaves. Maybe I’ll shove off and see if I can make it back to Redcliffe. Or maybe Denerim. I wonder is Amaye still hangs around The Pearl._

That final entry told Hawke more about her current situation than any amount of fraternizing with the crew would have done. This Warren fellow must have met a bad end or at least that seems to be what the author thought. If Stefan were still aboard, he could end up an unlikely ally against Rajun. Dealings that underhanded generally meant that there was a heavy level of mistrust, which could be exploited for an outsider’s purpose.

But then what? She’d still be trapped on a ship of slavers and for everything she knew, her nautical know-how was limited to identifying which bucket she should throw up in. And Rajun at the very least had thus far stayed true to his word, something she wouldn’t expect from this Stefan character; nor could she guarantee Rajun’s grace would continue until he released her at port in Minrathous- if she cleared her cut, if he let her leave. She wouldn’t put it past the man to forge the books to keep her on for a while longer and she could not risk being stuck onboard when they made port in Tevinter.

However, if the slaves below had come from a merchant vessel, perhaps they could be of some help. Remembering the man who had captivated the attention of the others below, she realized the man must have been a captain to command such authority. She wagered if she could get him to trust her then perhaps he or someone else below could cultivate the slaves into a more seafaring folk if they weren’t already. That in itself was well beyond the simple task it sounded to be. They had no reason to trust her and she had no way to meet with them in anything resembling privacy to reveal her identity or her plan.

The cogs in her mind spun furiously as she pieced the future together. Exploiting the alleged division and rallying the slaves behind her… Maker, could she actually set these people free on her own? But she grit her teeth and plotted around her own self-doubt. If any actions she took stood any chance to free these slaves, she had to do it… or die trying.

* * *

Hawke looked out at the water and up to the slavers working the sails on this blasted ship. Looking out at the vast blue-green ocean, Hawke knew that without a crew behind her, she had just as much of a chance at swimming for shore as she had for manning the ship on her own- and she was a poor swimmer to start. The only way she could possibly command this ship was to have a willing crew beneath her. Unfortunately, no amount of persuasion or charm would likely convince the slavers to give up their lot and begin a new life on the straight and narrow- that much was painfully obvious over the bloodstained deck. The men wouldn’t support her nor would they be convinced to renounce their wicked ways. She’d have to resort to more devious tactics.

She’d told Rajun to feed the slaves properly, as they were still recovering from their illness and likely wouldn’t be fully recovered by the time they reached Minrathous unless they were adequately tended to. Rajun grumbled fiercely about the integrity of his profit margin but capitulated in the end, seeing her reason. She also insisted on visits to the slave hold to insure, she promised, that the cargo was adequately recovering. Everyone in the slave hold, however, met her with unadulterated hatred and quashed any hope for an uprising. Any attempts to converse covertly with the cargo were met with stony silence, not that she could blame them in the slightest. But it meant that any attempt to make conversation with their leader would have been better directed at the wall behind him.

She’d spent the past few weeks hesitantly wandering the ship as Minrathous drew ever damningly nearer, her impending arrival lingering over her like an omnipresent doom as she plotted and schemed. The slavers’ dislike of her became more apparent with each appearance although she suspected her continued isolation would have only bred more contempt. Victor, the first mate, was utterly disinterested in whatever she could offer. So she deliberately made her presence known across the vessel, keeping quiet and to herself as she eavesdropped on the crew’s conversations, listening closely for her intended target.

“Woman doesn’t know a monkey paw from a bowline,” grumbled a man named White during one such appearance at a volume that was clearly meant for her to hear. “If she didn’t have magic and a twat…”

He was cut off by a rational tenor. “She saved our lives,” answered Stefan, a strangely willowy yet broad-shouldered man whose head contained more brains than that of his unwitting companion. His facial structure and almost-shy mannerisms indicated that he was a half-elf human, destined to see glory only beneath the authority of another and barely a hair’s breadth from sleeping with the slaves beneath the upper deck. “She’s new, cut the skirt some slack.”

“Stuck-up cunt is what she is,” the first man retorted as he haphazardly threw a line too close to the mage. She jumped in only half-feigned shock as the rope thudded against her calf and backed quickly away from the conversation as Stefan approached her and ducked down to take the line, briefly skimming her ankle with the backs of his fingers.

Their eyes met for a brief moment and she diverted her gaze coyly, hoping to entice the man into conversation. The days of gambling with her fate paid off as he offered, “Forgive my bastard friend. His mother taught him not to talk to strangers.”

“I’ll wager your friend is far stranger than I,” she responded easily and offered a gentle smile, even as her stomach turned at Stefan’s eager grin. He was a slaver, she reminded herself- a handsome and dangerous slaver, but also a half-elf… and that heritage was ammunition she could use against him.

He stroked the rope absent-mindedly and replied, “We’re not as strange as you’d think, serah. You’re as strange to us as we are to you.”

She cocked her head and gifted him with another smile, “I never said that being strange was a bad thing.” Turning her head to his slender hands, she noted his eyes watching the direction of her gaze as he adjusted his grip and began caressing the rope within his grasp, the movements of his fingers becoming bolder as he fondled the line, displaying the talents of the weathered appendages for her seeming amusement.

Catching onto her heavy flirting, he scooted closer and murmured, “Perhaps we should talk about our peculiarities someplace more… private.”

Jackpot.

“We should,” she dared cloyingly, “but I’ve got a meeting with Rajun in a bit. Perhaps later.” Her eyes deliberately lingered on his hands before she turned away to return to her quarters. She’d let his attraction simmer into jealousy. Let him think her attention was split between obligation and desire. Give him another reason to hate Rajun outside the possible murder of his so-called brother.

In fact, Rajun’s meeting with her couldn’t have been better timed, given the circumstances. She sauntered to his quarters, taking on a demure affectation only when in sight of his brutal bodyguards, whispering with a played and hated shyness that Rajun was expecting her; it benefited her for the slavers to believe her helpless, so she hammed it up at each and every opportunity, praying her enemies believed her to be some sort of shirking flower in the presence of the fervent bees surrounding her. Honestly, she only could paint a better a picture of feminine frailty if she’d ever learned to faint on cue, a talent her mother had developed in her noble youth to get her out of boring conversations but had failed to cultivate in her daughter. The guards stepped aside before she even finished speaking, so unthreatening did they find her.

Rajun alone rejected her performance of feebleness, having witnessed her razor-sharp mind and acerbic wit firsthand, but seemed to write off her acting as an attempt to win over the crew. He’d even gone so far as to comment that perhaps she’d be better off keeping the crew oblivious to her stubborn nature, agreeing that a delicate and demure woman was less likely to rile the slavers’ desire for _correction_. She shuddered to think what that could mean, harboring some very dark suspicions.

Rajun had refused her demand for armor until the last leg of the trip, insisting repeatedly that her protection was his obligation and she needn’t fear the anything aboard his ship. Now that she was daring to walk among them, his tone had changed. But whether his acquiescence to her request was based solely on their agreement, or to the proximity to Minrathous, or to some impending danger from his crew was anyone’s guess. All that mattered was that he’d apparently decided that he owed her the armor he’d promised… and he intended to deliver.

Without a word, he gestured to the clothing upon his bed, black and laden with countless buckles and reinforced leather. Even from this distance, she could smell the faint aroma of whiskey on his person, cloying and faint but lingering there. She’d never seen the captain drunk before but had seen him sip at liquor fairly often. Rajun favored sobriety and had confessed to her that alcohol made him into what he called ‘fighting drunk,’ eager to use force to silence his opponents and get whatever he wanted. Silently, she stepped forward to claim the clothing but when she turned to leave with the bundle in her arms but he called for her to stay and turned his back dutifully as he bade her to don the garments.

Feeling ever so embarrassed, she meekly stripped behind Rajun’s haunting stare- obedience being something she never would have offered someone like him…but it was part of the act to let him think he controlled her. Exposed as she was, Rajun never turned back to leer at her. She shrugged the armor onto her frame with only minor difficulty. The garments finally somewhat in place, she had the opportunity to criticize the fit. The clothing was slightly too large for her, the pants were slung too low over her hips. The tunic simultaneously revealed her ample chest and constricted it in a comfortingly supportive manner. The bracelets held above her wrists but the sleeves poofed uncomfortably between the cuff and her shoulders. Her robes had always been fitted by the tailors who had sold them; she realized she had always taken that for granted as she moved awkwardly within the clothing she’d bartered her soul for.

“Are you covered?” he asked casually, still infuriatingly facing the wall as though the fit of her clothing meant nothing to him.

She fiddled with a buckle on her sleeve, realizing the seemingly excessive fastenings were meant to customize the fit. “Somewhat,” she answered bitterly as she shifted uneasily in the slaver’s apparel, nearly every aspect, moral and physical, seeming distinctly uncomfortable in her new wardrobe.

He turned back and set upon her, grabbing her body and the clothing roughly. He cinched, fastened and clinched all the loose fabric within the buckles, fastening her into this hated clothing as though it had been crafted specifically for her. His method was so painstakingly and swiftly methodical she couldn’t even truly struggle against it or even comprehend exactly what his busy hands were doing, just that they were everywhere. Even as she leaned away, he jerked her closer and ducked down to work the fastenings on her breeches, his warm breath touching against her most sensitive areas while he clinically worked his hands over her. For a moment, she thought she felt his lips caress her through the cloth but it was over so quickly, she couldn’t even be sure if it was intentional or if it had even happened at all.

Then he clasped his lips over her through the pants and he pushed his hand over her thigh and up to the joining of her legs briefly, pressing his fingers against her sex. There was no mistaking that move. She retreated but her backward momentum propelled her onto his bed. Her hands came down instinctively, preparing to push his hot mouth and hated hands away from her. With a look bordering on mayhem, he moved over her and began once more fastening the final buckles on her clothing, capturing her with cloth while he rested between her thighs. Shock at this bizarre assault kept her from fighting, she could hardly determine exactly where it was happening. He moved his mouth to her belly and stroked his fingers over her confidently, running a finger under the tightness of the buckle on her thigh, before backing away so quickly it was as though the assault hadn’t even happened.

But when she saw his eyes, she knew- knew his intent and the significance of the strange act that had just taken place. It had been Rajun’s intent to dominate her and dominate her he had. She never thought the act of dressing could feel like a violation… but there it was. His eyes glared up at her, daring her to defy him as his mouth dipped lower once more, letting her smell his breath as he hovered over her like a raincloud. That set her mind right but before she could even strike out against him, he’d backed away, his ominous glower telling her that he had made his point.

“You think a suit of armor is going to keep you safe?” he muttered and eased his body closer, still keeping out of kicking range. “Remember- The only thing protecting you on this ship is me.”

Killing him wasn’t an option. Summoning her will, she hurled his body away but he artfully landed on his feet. “Is that what you told Warren?” she spit. The statement was foolhardy, displaying information that she clearly was not privy. But in that moment, her hatred for Rajun burned so fiercely, so painfully bright, that she’d have cut off her own nose if she thought it could spite him.

Rajun went suddenly pale and whispered menacingly, “What did you say?” He reaction told a story of things no one was meant to say… speaking of Warren’s fate was a deep taboo apparently; and it was one that she’d carelessly broken. Rajun was off kilter at the mere mention of it. This was a weakness that needed to be exploited to its fullest advantage.

Her new assessment of the situation putting her solidly back into the advantage, she arched an eyebrow at his, sadistically delighting in his shock. “Did I stutter?”

“How do you know that name?” He snarled and his hand found a heavy book, hurling it in her direction haphazardly. Hawke took a moment to bask in utter satisfaction at the slaver’s rapid unraveling as he took to pacing for only a moment before he turned his attention back to her.

It was refreshing to once more best a foe with her wit alone. She’d always been a cerebral sort of warrior, defeating her enemies with her sharp tongue as well as her mind, where all her true power resided. “I know he was your first mate and he ended up mysteriously dead,” she replied nastily as she rose from his bed. “Seems a common occurrence for people who piss you off.”

Rajun glared pure murder at her and averred, “First of all, Warren was a sadist and a pedophile that I let onto my ship against every ounce of good judgment I had. He wouldn’t have looked twice at you unless you were a boy under ten.”

“Convenient that he can’t defend himself against such slander,” she smirked.

“I didn’t like him, Lydia, I made no secret of that, but I didn’t make that shark have a go at him. I just happened to be the only one who saw it pull him off the rudder. I was as surprised as everyone else that it happened.”

A shark? How utterly clichéd that Warren had met his end to one of the rabid wolves of the sea. She was actually pretty satisfied with his ending all things considered. Regardless, tact had its place here, so she laughed mirthlessly and said, “With all due respect, sharks are only surprising if they catch you on land. I would be surprised if, perchance, one attacked me while I was gardening.”

“I didn’t kill him,” he snarled at her.

“I’d hardly expect you to admit to it if you had,” she snapped back.

“I didn’t kill Warren,” he groaned in endless irritation. He stalked nearer and she readied her defense; Rajun really shouldn’t have put her in decent armor before he tried this- a testament to his almost negligible intoxication. But she couldn’t kill him, her rational mind told her, she was on a ship full of enemies who would slaughter her at the slightest provocation… and even if she succeeded in their defeat, she was still lost at sea. His firm, weathered hands grasped her shoulders and shook them infinitesimally in his emphasis as he murmured once more, “I did not kill him.”

And she believed him even as she knocked away his fists and pushed him away once more. The sheets tangled over her feet as tripped for a moment, regaining her balance by leaning heavily against his headboard, the buckles he’d artfully fastened catching the fabric in her retreat. The deep rumbles of demons pounded into her mind but Hoppers stilled them for her. She was contemplating her next non-fatal defense when the door swung open and Victor poked his head within.

“Out!” Rajun yelled once but his advance was stymied, Victor’s interruption destroying whatever mood the slaver thought he had set. “We’re busy!”

“Angwe and Court are about to kill each other,” Victor stated with a sort of bored nonchalance. “You need to take care of it.”

Unwittingly wrapped in bed sheets, she attempted her best to act the unwilling victim, an appearance she felt to be nauseatingly easy given the situation. Rajun could have been ripped asunder with a mere thought… but that would have accomplished nothing so she kept her mind and hands still. Victor shot her an odd look as she put on her best expression of embarrassment as Rajun tugged her to her feet and began once more adjusting the various buckles and holsters that would keep her armor in place before he retreated from her and into the hull of the ship.

“You owe me,” were Victor’s last words before he spun and left to follow his captain… and he was right. She’d picked a bad fight and Victor had broken it up before either she or Rajun could push the battle of wills further.

She certainly did not like being in debt to another slaver.

She spent more time on deck after that, mostly to avoid spending ample time in proximity to Rajun as well as futilely hoping to endear more of the crew behind her in case the captain came after her once more. But it was an exercise in futility, the crew continued to hate her and Rajun ignored her entirely. Perhaps he was embarrassed, she certainly hoped so given his behavior. She focused her attention on Stefan, watching the half-elf’s moves and flirting subtly until she was certain the man desired her.

Then, a week from Minrathous, she finally made her move, her killing blow in subterfuge- and an act she felt even Varric would be proud of, non-violent as he was. She was in the kitchen quarters, having seemingly worked up the nerve to take meals with the slavers. She sat several feet away from Stefan, picking at the rather unappetizing concoction the ship’s cook was calling stew and wondering exactly what sort of meat had such an odd, gamey flavor while desperately hoping that she’d never actually find out.

“Nice armor, it certainly shows off your… attributes,” leered one she knew to be called White.

“Well, I offered to wander about naked but Rajun insisted that I be clothed. He got them for me,” she answered back with a smirk. She’d adjusted her persona in the guise of looking more comfortable amongst the crew, dropping a line or two of sarcasm or peppering a lewd joke into otherwise dull conversation. As a result, the crew’s distaste was lessened from utter acrimony to mere dislike, though she was certain she could win them over if she had more time or even the remotest desire to gain their approval.

White sneered as he took a gaping bite of his gruel and muttered, “Did he make you work for it or is he just giving his prized mage presents now?”

“I think you know as well as I that Rajun isn’t exactly the flowers and candy sort,” she laughed in what she hoped sounded like guileless exuberance. “It came out of my five,” she added with a deep mental smirk.

Had she been listening more carefully, she could have heard a pin drop. “Five what?” Victor asked with a brutal bite. “Percent? He’s giving you five?”

“Oh, Maker. I meant three.” She regarded the furious man and whimpered in feigned confusion before she noted the man’s anger and hurriedly amended again, “I mean three. Out of my three.” Her hands came together in a fidgeting gesture, rubbing over one another as though she were stressed while she rose to pace nervously, knowing her actions would scream anxiety when she delivered her mixture of truth and falsehoods.

“Five what?” Victor asked with a growl and stood to tower over her. “It came out of your five what?”

She opened her eyes wide as she regarded the very angry man and murmured, “Not five. Three. Percent- out of my three percent. Isn’t that what we’re all making?”

He leaned closer to her and snarled in her ear, “Then why did you say five?”

She deliberately looked down for a moment, hoping to convey more nerviness at Victor’s fury and replied, “I don’t know. Must have been a number stuck in my head, is all. I think about numbers a lot. Did you know there are ninety-four wood planks in the hallway leading to the lodgings on the upper deck?”

Ugh… she sounded so weak and womanly she wanted to slap herself, or better yet, go smoke a cigar and then punch the Arishok in the testicles. But judging from the looks she was getting from the men surrounding her, the act was working. She remained the center of attention as the men poured their resentment over her. Her perceived weakness only made it worse.

It was White who approached her, invading her personal space as his words poured his foul breath over her face. “Much as I like the scenery you provide around here, mage, your tits shouldn’t be netting you more than the rest of us. Ark made the same as we and he went on raids.”

“Perhaps Rajun has decided that keeping a mage is easier than finding one,” she retorted, refusing to back away from the White. It would have been futile to even try, it would have sent her back against Victor.

A wicked sneer spread over the man’s face as he stepped closer. “Is he fucking you?”

She snorted, watching White’s eyes go dark as he scrutinized her. “I’d rather hump a meat cleaver.”

He sneered, the expression exposing his maw to her. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Too bad,” she replied, catching Stefan’s head jerk in her vision’s periphery.

“That’s enough, White,” Victor pushed a solid hand against the man’s chest and pushed him away from the mage. Victor then looked at her disbelievingly, which had been her primary objective, and stormed away. After an embarrassed look shared with Stefan, she made her way back to her room, ignoring the small group of men huddled near Rajun’s door. They were, she knew, listening to the two men within screaming at one another. Unfastening her lock, she hurried inside, poured herself two fingers of scotch and sat on the floor resting with her back against the wall she shared with the captain, gloating to herself at the sheer hatred she’d inspired these two men to sink to.

“It doesn’t matter how much she thinks she’s getting paid or how much I advance her because she’s not getting off in Minrathous so I don’t care if she thinks she’s getting fifty percent!” Rajun’s muffled voice came through the wall, confirming her suspicions that he had no intent of honoring their bargain, unholy as it was. “She doesn’t know the books! She’s staying until I tell her she can leave!”

“Seems like no one knows your books, Rajun,” Victor growled back. “Why don’t you hand them to me and we’ll start doing math together?”

“You stay the fuck away from my books!” Some shuffling, perhaps Victor had attempted to bypass Rajun and get to the books directly. Even Hawke was getting curious as to exactly what exactly they contained after witnessing- in a fashion- the fierceness with which Rajun defended them.

Victor apparently felt the same way and replied. “They’re the ship’s books, Rajun. And I want to fucking see them!”

Rajun cursed some more and a dull thud against her back and the sound of wheezing told her that the argument had come to blows. Sighing, she examined her fingers, critically eying a ragged nail that had broken earlier in the day. No matter how careful she was, her nails just seemed to keep breaking. Perhaps it was the food on the ship. She never thought she’d actually look forward to getting into Minrathous. Didn’t she have a nail file hiding around here somewhere?

“I’d put that dagger down unless you want it shoved up your arse,” Victor warned with a dangerous snarl.

Ugh… her cuticles were atrocious, she thought as she retrieved her file and began artfully smoothing the rough nail down as the fight continued next door. Merrill had tutored her the finer details of nail grooming when she discovered Hawke’s shameful habit of biting her nails. Merrill, blood mage and demon-dealer, simply cringed when she caught Hawke gnawing on a broken nail until the tip came free. The elf dedicated herself from then on as Hawke’s personal manicurist, even finding a few shades of lacquer that she liked.

Those days with Merrill were always so much fun, and as wary as the blood mage made her, she was really the only person privy to the girly side of Hawke- the side of her that allowed the elf to paint flowers onto her toenails while they exchanged stories about Ferelden and the Dalish. Merrill was like a sister to Hawke, and it was the elf who shyly mused that she’d briefly been worried that the Champion was using the elf as a replacement for the sister she’d lost before they ever made it to Kirkwall; silencing any protest Hawke could have made by stating she knew it had been a silly thing to think but the rejection from her clan had left her orphaned as well and she rather liked their ragtag family, however or whyever it came to be. She suspected that was why she overlooked her flagrant use of blood magic. It was that innocent intuition, the hopeless flittering nature of her, like a butterfly or a bumblebee… and because Merrill reminded her so much of Bethany when she was younger.

Rajun’s voice boomed through the wall once more. “That statue is an antique!”

More sounds of breaking glass and Victor replied, “It’s garbage now!”

She rolled her eyes as Rajun and Victor duked it out for another fifteen minutes, pulling off her boots to shape her toenails. A stubborn bit of pink lingered at the tip of her big toe. Maybe she’d paint them red once they got to Minrathous… or maybe green with flowers. Should she do her hands to match? As more crashing and banging sounded from the battle only a few planks of wood behind her, Hawke considered all her options and decided she would go with polka dots, maybe black on red like a ladybug- that way she could keep her fingernails a simple red and they’d still match her feet.

Satisfied with that decision, she donned her boots once more just as Rajun’s door slammed closed and Victor barked at everyone to get back to work. Dusk crept in through the tiny porthole that revealed the endless expanses of both sea and sky. The impending darkness set the water to an inky black and the air was blazoned with reds and orange with hints of stars at the deep purple edges. It was going to be a beautiful night, she was almost loath to do what would have to come next.

She donned her cloak, knowing it would offer little protection and made her way to the upper deck to where she knew Victor to be, where he always went after his fights with Rajun- to stare out at the water the ship had cut through, to gaze back at where they had just been. Her stomach sank so deeply she feared irrationally that she may trip over it as she stole along the weathered planks to the aft- the back, she was pretty sure that was aft- of the ship. This wasn’t self-defense or imminent protection, what she planned here was nothing short of premeditated murder- regardless of how many lives she may save in the process.

She’d done this before, made these rounds alone on this deck, only once before when Victor was here. One of the deckhands was a routine patroller, circling the deck every hour without fail. A quick glance around confirmed that she and Victor were alone. She kept to the shadows, waiting for the patrol to arrive and then pass to leave them alone once more. This was her chance and if she botched this, the consequences would be dire if not immediately fatal. She darted forward, her footsteps alerting Victor to her presence but before he could say a word, she raised her hand and petrified him. His scream silenced before it could even tear from his throat, she deftly unhooked his key ring before she shoved his stone-entombed body over the guardrail and he hit the water with a loud plunk, sinking immediately into the churning waves.

The petrification would hold him until it was too late. He’d either drown before the spell released him or immediately after as he scrambled for the surface. Hawke hated slavers, hated slavery, hated Tevinter and boats and Maison and this senseless war… but none of that stopped the strange sensation of dread at her suddenly very uncertain future. With Victor in his watery grave, the events of the next few days were now solidly out of her hands. She could only sit back and pray that the mistrust of the crew would render Rajun into an instrument of his own destruction.

It was now or never, she told herself as she stole back into the ship, bumping into another slaver on her way to her quarters. Her actions tonight had either brought salvation to the slaves aboard this ship… or single-handedly murdered them all. She mentally listed her assets as she poured herself a liberal shot of scotch, ticking them off as she downed the glass in one go.

One overzealous batch of slavers- check.

One captive merchant crew- check.

One rigged powder keg… check.

She’d only been in her room a few hours, drinking more scotch when Rajun began shouting all hands on deck. Wary and slightly tipsy, she tripped along the hallway until she made it to the deck, taking up in line next to Stefan, who smirked when he noticed her slight intoxication. She grinned fearlessly at him and bumped her shoulder against his playfully when the ship hit a slight wave, completely ignoring Rajun’s shouted questionings if all the crew was accounted for.

“Is this everyone?” Rajun shouted with a twinge of anxiety on his tongue as he stormed through the line and commanded everyone from the hull and their various states of slumber.

“Yeah, boss,” someone answered. “There’s no one else below. Just the cargo.”

“Then where’s Victor?” Rajun snarled back. She broke her gaze with Stefan while he searched the line for the dead first-mate and she pretended to do the same, knowing he would not be found standing among them. The slavers went noticeably stiff as they noticed the missing member of their ranks. The captain finally snarled hatefully, “Search the ship! See if he’s passed out somewhere.”

“He’s not on the ship,” Stefan growled to her as they moved out. She turned her attention back to him and saw his eyes were cold and scared and wide. “Son of a bitch tossed him overboard like he did Warren.”

She gasped and touched her hand to his arm. “Rajun said Warren was killed by a shark, Stefan,” she murmured beneath her breath.

His eyes softened and he moved closer to whisper in her ear. “So I heard. This is horseshit.”

The shouts of another slaver brought Stefan and her to the edge of the ship where the dinghies were kept. From the line of five small boats, an ominous gap revealed a missing raft. Her heart plummeted as Rajun surveyed the scene, calling out that Victor must have abandoned ship. It meant only one thing as she fought the urge to reach up and clutch at her chest to muffle the rapid staccato of her pounding heart. It wasn’t possible- she’d been so careful… but the evidence was there clear as daylight.

Perhaps winds from the night before had pulled the small vessel away from the ship. Maybe someone else took the boat or it was lost by simple mistake. But seeing it missing, Hawke knew she had to do the responsible thing and brace herself for the worst.

She’d been seen. And someone was covering for her.

Hawke’s mind was in utter disarray for the duration of the next two days. She kept waiting for someone to come- for someone to make demands of her in exchange for silence. Her plan had failed in the worst possible way. But no one came. So until her mysterious benefactor revealed himself, she continued as though nothing had happened. Rajun replaced Victor with White, who openly called her both a witch and Rajun’s whore in the mess hall.

She became reclusive once more after that, dining again exclusively in her quarters and leaving only to check on the wellbeing of the crew and cargo… _slaves_ , she mentally corrected herself. Rajun’s room remained mostly silent with only the sounds of pacing and random curses carrying through the thin wall. Paranoia gave the demons yet another toehold in her mind and she’d clutched at Hoppers’ eye while she rested on her bed, focusing on her own strength to keep herself from the alluring temptation to just give in and let it all be over with. But she couldn’t- couldn’t let them all down- and that wasn’t the woman she was. The scotch dulled her connection to the Fade, allowing her several hours of restless sleep before she had to rise to battle her mind once more. She wasn’t one to usually self-medicate through alcohol but she wagered hazily, if it was good enough for Fenris then it was good enough for her.

The third morning was met with the sensation of Stefan jostling her shoulder. Blearily, she shot up still tangled in Rajun’s shirt, her designated sleeping garment, as she instinctively backed away. The effects of the alcohol had worn off sometime during her sleep and she realized the room was dark, the sun blissfully absent from the window. It was the early hours of morning and he’d apparently dared to pick the lock on her door in order to see her.

“Get dressed and come on,” he whispered to her. She gestured for him to turn around as she strapped herself into the outfit Rajun had procured for her, time and practice with the black buckles leaving her exposed for a blessedly brief amount of time. Noting the daggers resting on Stefan’s back, she grabbed the simple rod Ark had left behind before departing on his final ill-fated landside trip. Rajun had denied her a proper weapon, stating it was his job to protect her- not a weapon’s. The pathetic staff was only slightly better than nothing… but it was at the very least a club.

With a nod, Stefan led her through the bowels of the ship, winding through the hallways that had become familiar to her and avoiding the tricky dead-ends and doors that opened into nothingness until they arrived in one of the lower storerooms. Roughly a third of the crew occupied the small space and while she would hate to meet any of the men running this ship in a dark alley, the men before her comprised the top tier of that list.

She hadn’t been accused of anything, and Stefan had not appeared urgent but that could mean any number of things. But certainly, if he suspected her of involvement in Victor’s demise, she’d already be on her way to the slaves’ hold. He grimaced for a moment before he shook his head, stating, “Someone told me they saw you running back to your room the other night, pale as a sheet and I cannot for the life of me imagine what must have been going through your head.”

She had misjudged the situation, damn it all. Dozens of curses and excuses rolled through her mind before she stuttered, “I don’t know what you mean,” opting for ignorance lest she give away her hand before knowing exactly what Stefan was accusing her of. But the knot in her stomach eased slightly, apparently, no one had seen Victor’s actual murder. This was an inquisition and not an execution… for the time being at least.

“The night Victor went missing,” he clarified softly. “You were on deck, weren’t you? Did you think no one would find out?”

Doing her best to look earnest, she insisted, “It wasn’t me.”

“You’re lying to me, Lydia…” he trailed off for a moment before grasping her shoulders firmly, squeezing until she felt her bones shift beneath his fingers. The rather ironic usage of her pseudonym revealing more lies than even the slaver knew. His eyes were both earnest and furious. Dread nearly overtook her as she silently speculated what the future had in store for her. Would these men throw her below deck with the slaves or attempt to blackmail her into remaining on this ship and occupying their beds?

Attempting to swim to Minrathous was beginning to look more and more appealing. But she remained silent for a long time before she finally answered him. “I don’t know what happened to Victor, Stefan,” she replied slowly, praying her denial sounded convincing. “I went on deck but I felt sick so I came back down. I swear to you I didn’t see anything.”

He groaned and shook her gently, “You should have come to me immediately. You don’t have to worry about Rajun, just tell me what you saw.”

Wait, what? Her mouth snapped closed with a click of her teeth as she waited patiently for Stefan to continue, perfectly content to let the man spoon feed her whatever he wanted her to parrot back. An evil grin almost gave her away as she contemplated her next action and then diverted her eyes demurely and timidly murmured, “I didn’t see anything,” waiting for the slaver to supply whatever answer it was he sought from her.

“Lydia, please…” he whispered and took her chin in his hand, directing her gaze back to him. “Did you see Rajun ditch the life-raft?”

Oh, Maker, this couldn’t have worked out better. Rajun had indeed become the instrument of his own destruction, inventing a method for Victor to leave by instead of facing further scrutiny for the mortality of his first mates. She barely repressed the urge to let out a long, wickedly delighted cackle. But that was a highly inappropriate reaction to the given circumstances, she knew. Instead she opened her eyes wide, conveying earnest shock that was only slightly exaggerated for effect, and softly exclaimed, “I didn’t think anyone would believe me.”

“I told you,” another man growled. “I saw that son of a bitch dump the boat. Now do you believe me?”

“That’s it,” Stefan growled and pushed her face away roughly, having finished extracting the so-called truth from her. She sank back into the shadows as the enraged slaver continued. “This ends tonight. Who’s with me?” The men surrounding her all gave quiet pledges of allegiance to Stefan. “Tonight it is. If they try stand against us, they will die. Get your weapons, the purge begins now!”

Shouts of bloodlust threatened to alert the rest of the ship to this group’s activites but it seemed they cared no longer. Her first mission had been a success. She’d stirred a mutiny right under Rajun’s nose and incited the angry men into a riot. Now, she just had to find a way to evade the group. Hawke brought her staff in front of her but Stefan clasped it and brought her hand down. “You don’t need to be mixed up in this in case anything goes wrong. Stay here. I’ll find you when this is over.”

It was like the Maker himself was smiling down upon her personally. Then Stefan darted forward and kissed her roughly, running his fingers over her neck while he violated her mouth with his, before he jerked her head back, his fingers knitted into a painful grip in her hair. “Later,” he murmured with another hard pull before he turned and retreated to begin the bloody battle he thought he’d started.

Oh… that was ominous. The only way that could have been more ominous was if he’d been wearing a black cape and handlebar mustache and had some thunder booming in the background. She was really glad she had no intention of letting the man have her or had harbored any real fondness for him. He perplexed her, a strange combination of hard and soft, a near perfect inversion of Fenris, whose gentle nature with her was tempered by an era of roughness, his lifetime of hardship and debasement forging him into a beautiful feathered blade, a weapon daunting to look at and terrifying to even consider in hands such as his… but one she knew could never hurt her.

Or so she’d thought. Sorrow pricked at the edge of her mind before she banished it back into the shadows where it belonged. There were far more important things to do than remain here and pine for her lost lover and, frankly, they were all things he would approve of.

The mutineers had begun climbing through the ship, demanding allegiance and slaughtering those who refused. This was her only shot to shift the tides in her favor and curry the riptide that would cast the slavers out to sea, where fate and circumstance could never rescue them. Instead of following or staying put as Stefan had ordered her, Hawke descended into the darkest hull of the ship, into the hateful pit in which the slaves were held captive, to the angry men and women who may just as soon rip her apart as listen to her. Fumbling slightly with Victor’s key, she opened the iron bars to the jail and entered the human embodiment of the Void.

She made her way immediately to their leader, who immediately spouted, “And what the fuck…”

“I started a mutiny,” she cut him off before he could start hurling insults at her again, dropping to her knees and releasing his hands. “If we fight together, we can take the ship. Otherwise, I’m dead and you’re off to scenic Minrathous.”

His eyes narrowed as he processed her words, “Who _are_ you?” His breath… ugh… his breath was exactly what she imagined would belong to someone without the ability to properly clean his teeth for months, smelling both sweet and putrid, but she contained her urge to gag, instead backing away slightly as she regarded him not as a captor but as an equal.

She shook her head, not wanting his fellow slaves to know her name, that part of her identity still too tenuous to guarantee their alliance. “That doesn’t matter now,” she said. “If you help me take it, this ship is yours.”

He smirked at her briefly and growled. “You don’t need to promise me a ship to get me to kill these motherfuckers… but it helps.” With a flex of his newly-freed wrists, the angry welts blazoned across them like the ones that adorned her own all those weeks ago, he barked to the others as he rose to his feet, “Women and children stay below! Anyone who can fight- follow us!”

With dire urgency, the former slave directed her toward the men who needed to be released first until she had an army of twenty or so ready to hear her commands… not nearly enough to take on the slavers as a unified whole but stood a chance of dispatching the factions bent on killing each other. The mutiny alone would provide the chaos they needed to have any chance to take the advantage. The last slave she released was a delicate looking man in his thirties, itching to fight despite his weakened nature, who was ordered by her new companion to release the others and find a haven to hold up in until the battle was won or lost.

She escorted the enslaved crew to the ship’s armory, finally open to her through Victor’s pilfered key and already half-depleted from the uprising slavers. They armed themselves best they could before they rushed up into the fray and Hawke found herself what was certainly Ark’s staff- ironbark, gold and steel winding and penetrating almost beautifully over the mortal bone, glittering in the candlelight as she wielded it to test its fierceness, with a the tip sharpened into a single wicked point and two lateral crescent blades arching gracefully from the body. It was runed, enchanted for firey death and for healing, a perfect foil against itself and as much a contradiction as she herself.

And then the battle for this hated ship truly began. She and the captain bum rushed the first group of slavers they encountered, the men too busy fighting one another to recognize their wildcard third opponent until it was far too late. A few gargled their own blood in shock as they realized it was her hands that delivered their death. The remainder were dispatched with ruthless efficiency- a knife in the throat, the crook of a staff popping their spinal structure apart, frustrated hands beating the life out of bodies no longer able to fight. They pushed forward moving through bloodied and cramped halls until they became trapped in another galley, the slavers uniting against them as the fight raged on.

It seemed no sooner had she dispatched one foe than a dozen more inundated in to take his place but they held strong in their advance. Arrows flew through the room, thunking into wood and bone alike, and though she couldn’t see their sources, she knew rogues were working their own style of brutal stealth magic. The projectiles skewered many of the foes around her. The captain took a place next to her as they pushed forward into the mess hall, and she raised her weapon with him, launching fireballs and healing spells with a brutal efficiency while he used the merely the force of his will, and two sharp daggers, to keep the attackers at a disadvantage.

A rock fist clapped her solidly on her side, the impact easily tossing her across the hall. Her armor, both physical and mystical, barely kept the blow from being fatal and she staggered back to her feet with her head reeling and her stomach churning. Two blood mages were hiding behind his fellow slavers, raising the bodies of his fallen brethren to keep the fight from ending. She tore at her will and commanded fire to rain down upon them, ignoring the bloody claws tearing at her while she summoned the embers. The captain was on her then, hacking the corpses away from her while she focused on her target. As quickly as he’d appeared, he was gone but she still heard the song of his blades whistling through the air.

She barriered herself quickly, letting the fire storm distract the blood mage while she swung her staff to keep her nearby attackers at a distance- the blades from the corseque styling rendering it into a rather delightful close-range weapon. She whirled upon a slaver that got too close, crunching one of the lateral blades deep into his eye cavity and watching the other pupil roll up into the lone intact socket. She yanked the metal from the bone, further decimating the man’s face before swinging the bladed arc like a scythe across another’s throat and resumed her concentrated attack against the blood mage without pause, trusting the slaves to dispense of the bandits behind her. Lightning arced from her hands but unfortunately missed its intended target, instead knocking out three injured slavers, who’d thrown themselves before the mage as human shields.

‘Meat shields,’ Fenris had called them once.

“I can’t focus!” she called the warning, her mana dangerously drained from the brawl. Fortunately, this staff alone was a formidable weapon her hands. The apostate smashed the bladed crook of her weapon around a distracted slaver’s neck and with a quick flex of her shoulder, decapitated the man with a sickening pop before twisting the outwardly delicate staff to bludgeon open another attacker’s skull. Her eyes met briefly with the enslaved captain and he gave her a quick approving smile before he spun around and slammed his dagger into another man’s suddenly opened skull, continuing to make himself a force to be reckoned with in spite of his weakened state.

A whistle cut through the air too near her face. She barely eked out a parry before the slaver brought the butt of his second blade down hard across her face. Her ears rang, her vision blackened, her head pounded. The eruption of pain was accompanied with a wet burst; the impact had broken skin and blood dripped into her eye. She dropped to the floor, thrusting out her hand to cast an ice spell just before her attacker could bring the blade down sharply over her exposed neck.

She hadn’t been aiming for his groin but couldn’t deny the man’s panicked squeal almost made the searing pain to be worth it. The man’s eyes turned to pure murder as he brought the blade up once more. It crashed down again, clanging against her staff when she blocked the killing blow. They held their positions for a moment, stalemated, but Hawke knew that the slaver had her on physical strength. Her vision half red from the blood flowing into her eye and down her face, she focused on her connection to the Fade, feeling the whirling energy flow through her. She pushed it outwards in a violent shove, the kinetic wave knocking her opponent back and into the brutal- and very fatal- arc of a slave’s blade.

With the bodies surrounding them, it seemed the battle was done for the moment; this portion of the hull had been taken by the rebels. Judging from the sheer number of bodies, she suspected this would have been their largest battle. But there was far more ship to take and a quick look between herself and the captain had her hackles raised once more. This battle would only be over when the last slaver perished and every preceding skirmish only did to weaken their might. Even with her healing efforts, three men had perished and against such an insurmountable force it was a terrifying loss. If she failed to keep more of these men alive, they held no chance at taking _The Bloodied Bandit_.

She needn’t speak these thoughts to the captain, who waited while she focused on her connection to the Fade and let it replenish her- he already knew. A started feminine screech from behind them told her that there were more slavers attempting to contain the uprising and without a word, she and the captain ran back to the slaves’ hold to protect the helpless slaves as the others charged ever forward to unleash the fists of their righteous rage against the men who had degraded them into mere objects.

She and her new companion ran back through the hull, Hawke silently praying to intercept the remaining slavers before they hit the armory and could imprison the others once more. Hostages would be a game changer. They came up against a barricaded door, the safe room the slave must have beckoned the women and children to hide within. The sounds of struggles and crying sounded through the cracks in the door, which the slave turned rebel kicked brutally until it separated from the frame and flew open. Two slavers looked up in shock at Hawke and the captain, one snarling only the words, “You little bitch,” before one of the slaves behind him clocked him solidly across the back of his head with some sort of musical instrument, which rang out a victorious twang once upon its first contact and then again when he collided it against the second foe, felling them both in a flurry of heavy wood and catgut.

“Go,” he commanded and slung the weaponized instrument over his shoulder. “They won’t take the armory so long as I’m here.”

She and the captain exchanged a long look before she slowly asked, “Do you want, you know, an actual weapon?”

The man shot her a pearly white smile and twirled the instrument artfully in his hands before he replied, “They say music soothes the savage beast. I intend to test that theory.”

“I’m not sure they meant by bludgeoning it over the head with instruments,” her companion replied with ill-veiled skepticism. But the man displayed something she’d seen in every person she’d ever taken into her strange little family- passion, desire to set things right, the will to survive against the most hopeless of odds, and she knew the slaves would be safe so long as this man stood alive among them.

“Semantics,” Hawke replied to the captain with a smile and gave a quick salute to the musician. “Go get them, tiger.”

The captain caught a man cowering on his knees by the arm and directed him to a weapon. “Stay with them,” he ordered another slave before adding in a low mutter, “and keep that one near the back.”

With the slaves defended, they rose through the maze of the ship once more, easily overwhelming the few slavers they caught in the confusion. But the battle had been mostly won by the time they arrived, the slaves slaughtering their captors before Hawke even got a decent look at them. She caught a glimpse of Stefan, mouth agape in stony wrath as he laid still and dead on the wood planks- there was no telling exactly who had killed him but hoped with a sort of sick hatred that he knew what she’d done before he died. Fury, it seemed, had been enough to propel the captives through a majority of the ship and it was on the deck, beneath the moon with the sun just beginning its creep against the black horizon, staining its dark countenance with blood red just as the slaves had done to Rajun’s precious ship, that she encountered the slaver captain for the final time.

“You have no idea how many people in Tevinter you’ve just pissed off, witch,” he snarled at her as he rested prostrate on his knees, but she detected a bit of hurt, betrayal at her actions. Honestly, she couldn’t have cared less for the slaver’s feelings.

“People?” she scoffed and took his hated face into her hands, pressing her thumbs deeply into his cheeks before she dug her nails in, letting her hatred consume her until she felt Hoppers vibrate against her chest and order her to stop… she was better than senseless violence- it was a gateway, he said. She bit the anger back and released the man as Hoppers lulled the distant echo of demons beckoning her to take her rage further and she spat, “Love, I’ve been pissing off city-states and whole countries. I’ve pissed off entire _religions_. I’m playing at vexation on a level you cannot even comprehend, let alone think to match me on.”

“Your men can come,” the captain added darkly as he pressed a single blade against Rajun’s angry twitching face. “We’ll murder the fuck out of all of them.”

But before Rajun could even think to respond, her companion shoved a dagger through the slaver’s eye socket, twisting the blade so it ground audibly through the bone before he withdrew with a sickening squelch of blood and brain matter. Rajun laid cold and dead on the deck of _The Bloodied Bandit_ and Hawke knew her newest mission had finally been accomplished.

Hesitantly, the other former slaves made their way onto to deck. What followed was the bloodiest party she’d ever been invited to. Alcohol was raided and wantonly consumed by the released men and women. Bodies were flung into the sea with cries of delight as various marine life came up to partake of the feeding frenzy their thanksgiving had brought. She minded the sharks as they decimated the corpses, watched the water bloom with red in the blossoming morning sun, observed the new day springing forth in a haze of bloodshed and open cries of relief. Hawke witnessed the former slaves celebrating a freedom many had never considered before while they ate and drank and defiled the corpses of their captors.

Then, she slept, creeping back into the quarters her old master had given her and slumbering unencumbered by fear and alcohol for the first time in days. When she finally awoke, it was dark once more as she staggered up to the main deck, still bafflingly tired and disbelieving of the enormous task she’d undertaken and somehow won. And he was there, the weird captain, that odd slave that captured the attention of his brethren, crouching to darn a sail with a needle in hand. He regarded her as she approached, rising to his feet as they silently scrutinized each other.

“What now, captain?” she asked playfully.

He shrugged and answered, “They killed the captain. I’m just the first mate.”

“So can you sail this thing?” she replied with a low sense of dread, fearing they’d be adrift until another vessel discovered them. “I’m not entirely sure what a first mate even does. All my seafaring knowledge is based off them getting murdered on this ship and innuendo from a pirate I know.”

“We need to get the masthead to full sail so we can get some speed,” he suggested.

“That’s what she said?” she offered back with a shrug.

He laughed, it was a rich and full sound unlike anything she’d heard in the past month and she found herself chuckling with it. He leaped elegantly down from the rig and gestured for her to follow away from the newly reinstated crew. They ended up in her quarters; it was natural she supposed, that he’d learned where she slept. He’d doubtless already mapped most of this ship before she even had a chance to fully rest. She opened the bottle of scotch that had seen her through the last few days, taking a deep drink before handing it off to her fellow.

“I can’t believe how exhausted I am,” he began. He took a long drink as well, paused, then took another, wincing and gasping as he finished. “So what motivated your little performance, mage?”

She busied herself with finding another bottle, whiskey this time, hidden in her nightstand before she replied, “I enjoy pissing off slavers.” She winked as she took a seat at the small table that adorned her suite. “It’s sort of a hobby of mine.”

He took a seat next to her. “I am Braedon,” he said softly. “I never told you before. Our crew was headed to Denerim before we were taken by those animals. They murdered anyone they thought was inconvenient.” He took another hit from the bottle and looked up at her with honest brown eyes. “I’m sorry I spit on you. I thought you were one of them.”

“An easy mistake,” she offered back amicably as she studied his face, weathered from time and recent strife. He looked thinner, gaunter, than his frame seemed to fit. “Given the circumstances, I’d probably have done the same.”

His eyes drew down to the bottle in his hands, almost like he was ashamed to meet her inquisitive look. “So who are you, Lydia? Who are you really?”

She ducked her own gaze then, wondering for a moment if she could trust the man before her with her true identity, before she realized he’d already placed an impossible trust within her the moment she’d promised his release and she could only repay him by doing the same. “My name is Marian Hawke,” she finally replied as she met his curious stare. “Champion of Kirkwall and notorious apostate extraordinaire.”

The label wrenched a startled gasp from him. Apparently, her name had told him fathoms about her that she’d not personally revealed. But instead of censure, instead of accusations, he looked on her with a sort of strange sadness. “You weren’t kidding were you?” he asked. At her confused look, he clarified, “You said you didn’t have a lot of choices when you got on this ship. You really didn’t. What happened to you?”

“I’d rather not talk about it if it’s all the same to you,” she answered, pushing her hair away from her face.

He reached out and touched his fingers to her cheek over the faint scar of the heavy wound he’d witnessed in its full bloodied glory. Embarrassed, she turned her face away only to have his rough hand shift her back into his gaze. Anxiety struck her in a horrible fashion but Braedon held her chin firmly, unwilling to let her hide from him. She closed her eyes as he traced the light scar like he sought to erase it from her face, the intimate mapping leaving her hopelessly off-kilter while his touch soothed over the imaginary sensation of unrelenting burning.

Finally he released her and she pulled away, restraining her weaknesses back within herself and Braedon let her, seeming to accept it was a topic she had no desire to discuss. “I’ll say this was my most promising option. It turned out better than I could have hoped for but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t prepared for it to go much worse.”

“We are in your debt,” he answered then reached out to touch her face again before thinking better of it, letting his hand settle on the jug once more. He drank from his bottle and she did the same from her own, letting the alcohol smooth over the rocks in the conversation.

Taking a deep breath, she powered onward. “I have a request and you’re free to deny it. This is your ship and you can do whatever you wish. But I need you to take me into Minrathous.”

“What?” he hissed angrily and rose from his seat, carrying the scotch with him as he set to pacing. “Minrathous? You want me to go into Minrathous after what happened to my ship- to my people?”

She took a deep breath but remained seated, not wanting to rile Braedon any further. “You’ll need to restock somewhere in Tevinter. If not Minrathous, then drop me wherever you dock. This is your ship,” she insisted once more. “Wherever you leave me is entirely up to you.”

“Minrathous,” he muttered. “You have to know they meant to sell us there. What if they’re waiting? What if we dock only to be taken again?”

“Slaver vessels don’t dock in the main port. Unbonded slavery is illegal in Tevinter and in theory they’re quite against it… at least on paper.” She saw his shoulders tense and release before they tensed up once more. He turned away, stalking to the porthole she’d observed so many dawns and dusks though before he finally turned his head to speak to her once more.

“And what of you?” he asked quietly, shifting his eyes down to hers once more. “How can you ask me to leave our savior in that Tevinter shithole?”

“Because I’m asking you to,” she answered. “Not demanding, not commanding, just asking. And I’ll be fine. And you have every right to say no. But if you won’t, just drop me off as soon as you’re comfortable and I’ll be on my way.”

But he spun back on her with a hissed, “No!” raising his hands like he meant to touch her but once again deciding against it and pulling his twitching hands to his side. “I can’t,” he growled painfully. “I _won’t_ leave you alone there.”

She stood from her chair and strode carefully to the agitated man. “These people need you,” she reminded him. “They won’t make it out of these waters without a leader and like it or not, you’re it.”

“I’m not a leader, I’m a follower- that’s what a first mate does,” he groaned in no little frustration and set himself to pacing once more.

“You led those men from the bowels of this ship up to take their leashes from those bastard slavers’ cold, dead hands,” she reminded him as she stood before him to block his infuriating pacing. “It was you barking those commands, not me.”

“With you,” he whispered. “I did it with you.”

He descended into the kiss before she really had a chance to consider it. His lips were rough and weathered, though he’d thankfully found some tooth powder to sanitize his mouth before using it so intimately on another. They hovered in that soft oral caress in a moment that seemed to span hours. She realized as the kiss lingered that they were both waiting for the other to push it further, which prompted her to pull away.

He looked abashedly at her and dropped his head, uttering only, “I’m sorry, I… I can’t.” The realization of the likely reason behind his hesitance hit Hawke only a moment too late. It wasn’t attraction or misplaced affection that had him reaching out for her after such a brief acquaintance.

It was grief… so she asked, “What was her name?”

“Elyse,” he replied simply, turning away as though he couldn’t bear the sight of her.

“Was she your wife?”

“Not by Chantry standards,” he answered, still avoiding her eyes as he contemplated the welts on his wrists. “She escaped from her parents in some bastard Ferelden settlement called Haven, ruled by some damned cult. She didn’t believe in marriage, said the Maker and Andraste had no business in the lives of men. I never pushed her for it.”

“What happened to her?” she questioned, dreading the answer she knew to be coming.

“They raped her. Then they murdered her. I was tied… I tried to save her,” he responded in a flat monotone, like his vocal cords couldn’t process the anguish his mind had clearly been set to. “I promised to keep her safe. I failed her.”

She hugged him, wrapping her arms around his broad hips and tucked her head beneath his chin in comfort. He completed the gesture and buried his face in her hair as she freed a hand up to caress her pendant and thought of Lydia. “You avenged her,” she murmured into the quiet room as she stroked the warm metal, speaking the words as much for him as she spoke them for herself. Those words brought more confusion over her mind than anything that had occurred since she’d boarded this ship.

“With you,” he repeated into her hair. “I did it with you.” She could feel his soft inhale in her ear before he tipped her chin up and settled his lips over hers.

He kissed her again; more determined this time as he maneuvered her back onto the bed. She drew him down over her and ran her fingers through his coarse hair. A soft breath escaped her as they began undressing each other, pulling away the armor they wore until only their smalls remained. He ground the ridge of his erection against her in clear intent and she moaned and clutched at his back as their tongues tangled together. It felt good… but it did not feel right.

He was wrong, the stubble on his chin scraped against her skin. His body was too bulky and he pressed against her at a different angle than what she expected. He released the clasps on her breast band and brought an overlarge hand up to tease the new skin while the other grasped at the skin of her back to clutch her nearer, his nails too long, his skin too smooth and flat, his hands too inelegant. The kisses were precision born of expertise, not the unpracticed passion that could draw her into a near frenzy with only an errant brush of teeth. It was too much, too soon, too fast, likely for both of them.

“Stop,” she demanded in a whimper, and she pushed him away to roll from beneath him to the edge of the bed, sitting up to bury her head in one hand while the other clutched the sheet to conceal her nakedness as she tried to still her mind and determine if she was truly ready for this.

The bed shifted behind her and his naked chest pressed against her back, the spattering of hair ticking against her spine. Long moments of silence lingered between them before Braedon finally asked, “What was his name?”

“Fenris,” she replied dully. “His name is Fenris.”

His quick mind caught her use of the present tense so he pushed on, “What happened?”

He’d already bared his broken heart to her; it was only appropriate that she do the same. But what had happened, she wondered. How had they gone from those beautiful last days in Kirkwall to her on her back in bed with a man she barely knew? She massaged her temples in frustration and blinked the tears from her eyes, saying simply, “I don’t know.”

Braedon brought a weathered hand up to touch her chin and turned her back to him, easing her onto the bed again; but rather than push himself upon her, he clutched her closely against his body, his erection flagging against her and his breath going even as he gently pushed his thigh between hers to entangle their legs. He kissed her cheek and her neck almost innocently before he pressed his forehead to hers and stared into her eyes for only a moment before his eyelids slid closed and he sighed contentedly. They’d bared their souls and heartbreaks to each other- their nearly bare bodies felt far less intimate.

“I’ll get you to Minrathous,” he swore quietly, eyes still closed because he didn’t need to see to know she heard. “I cannot promise anything farther but I will get you there. I swear it.” She, too, let herself begin to drift away and relax in his arms, heady on the craven sensation of being held by another. They fell asleep in that sweet embrace, both understanding and accepting that they weren’t in the arms of the ones they truly wanted but silently agreeing to pretend that they were as the Fade took them.

Two days later, the ship finally reached port and Hawke was finally satisfied with the circumstances that had led to her bizarre maritime journey and their final outcome. She stood on the deck with Braedon’s hand slung casually about her waist as she rested her heavy head upon his solid shoulder, the easy affection between them lingering somewhere between familial kinship and uneasy attraction. They were both unready for anything further, their own pasts keeping them carefully guarded from one another, but they still sought each other in the night to cuddle away the horrible loneliness that afflicted them both; when they’d reached for their lovers and found them missing, they fell instead against each other and let the neediness of sexless touch comfort them until they rested once more.

Braedon had promised he would see her to Minrathous but agreed that he couldn’t stay- not even for her. He had his crew to protect, hardened sailors as well as merchants, women and children. His experience with anything pertaining to Tevinter would be forever plagued by fear that he and his charges would be enslaved once more. It frightened and relieved her simultaneously that this strange man would not linger too near her. They were both of them damaged goods- he by murder and she by betrayal- and she knew any sort of relationship they could cultivate would be poisoned by their past, wilting like flowers some blundering gardener tried to protect from the bright sunlight.

When the ship finally docked, he eased his hand away from her and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, bidding her forward to leave him behind. With a sad smile, she pressed her lips against his chin and cupped his face before she thanked him for everything he’d done to help her.

“Another time, another place” were the final words he chose to murmur into her ear. “If we were different people, had different lives… I’d never let you go. Go fight your war, Marian, but know my blades and my blood are yours to command whenever you want them again.”

And then she’d left, finding herself standing on the plank leading down into the most hated city in Thedas with none other than the man she’d seen wielding his lute as a weapon in the hull of that vile ship. His clothing was clean, face scrubbed and teeth polished, and his instrument shined from a recent polishing. They stood silently next to one another, content in the quiet for nearly a half hour before the man finally turned to her and spoke.

“Do you believe in fate, Lydia?” he asked casually as they waited for the harbormaster to hurriedly process the unexpected ship.

Her true identity lay with Braedon alone and to the former slaves she was simply Lydia. It felt appropriate to do good acts in her single given name, incomplete as it was. Against all reason and rationality, she still somehow believed it would curry favor for the mage’s shattered soul with the Maker. Even as senseless as it seemed, she couldn’t shake the desire to use her name, to make that broken woman into something synonymous with freedom and strength with the people she’d rescued from their shackles just as Lydia’s sacrifice itself had saved her. Hoppers’ eye rested peacefully against her bosom, assuring her that it was alright to honor Lydia in this outlandish manner.

She thought hard for a moment about the circumstances that brought her into this hateful hovel of a capital city… pondered all the good she’d done weighted against the terrible strife she’d endured. Then she finally replied, “I’m not sure what fate is… but I’ll be damned if I said I don’t seem to have the strangest luck.”

“That’s all fate is,” he answered quietly. “A series of seemingly unconnected coincidences that come together for a grand twist.”

She grinned and surveyed the tall, massive buildings reaching into the sky and dilapidated hovels buried into the rock beneath. “So why are you going into Tevinter? I thought your ship was headed to Ferelden,” she asked.

“Fate brought me here in more ways than one,” he answered easily, shifting his weight as though he was eager to set his feet onto solid land once more. “And I don’t intend to fight it.”

“Nor do I,” she replied as she shared a smile with the musician. She contemplated this horrible metropolis and the secrets she suspected carried in her hopes of defeating Anders. And with a bark from the harbormaster, she delivered a quick nod to the man, descending the plank into Minrathous, walking proudly with the stranger until the road parted them- he taking one fork and the erstwhile apostate taking the other.

* * *

_End Chapter 6_


	7. Reckoning

Nemesis  
Chapter 7- Reckoning

“ _Forgiveness and grace are crutches for the weak.”  
Fenris_

“I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for,” Isabela murmured distantly into his long ear as he stood on the plank heading down into the city before her strong hand stroked over his neck and aimed his head into the heartlands below. “Believe me, she’s waiting, too. Now get off my ship, love. I have things to do and a lawful presence could interfere with the finer points of my negotiations.”

Those had been Isabela’s final words before she unceremoniously booted him from her boat once they’d reached Cumberland. Hawke was doubtless a quarter of the way to Minrathous by now, happily out of his reach and off to find Maker knows what.

He and Isabela parted ways amicably. The pirate remained blessedly hushed about his breakdown in Cosazure; more so, she’d stayed infuriatingly silent about Hawke’s greater intentions, regardless of how hard he badgered her for any sort of definitive answer. He’d meandered throughout her ship, covertly attempting to divine information from the crew and passengers to absolutely no avail. It seemed that no one save Isabela knew anything of a woman named Marian, nor Hawke, nor Amell, nor the Champion of Kirkwall, nor of any Ferelden refugee that had ever been scheduled to board the pirate’s ship. They were either painstakingly tight-lipped about her to strangers or were oblivious to the imminent threat that had been slated to fearlessly walk among them.

Despite his deep misgivings, he found himself in the end deciding that Isabela was truly ignorant as to Marian’s grand Tevinter scheme, benevolently kind or inexplicably evil as the intent behind her unusual quiet could have been. An honest assessment recognized that Isabela had dedicated herself to tending to the elf like some doting Chantry matron; despite claiming to despise to concept of maternity or Charity or even the sheer idea of putting another’s needs before her own- she had nevertheless minded the wounds upon his soul with the careful and concerned caution that he’d expect from some errant adoptive mother- nipping and fussing over him as the mainland drew ever nearer. She doted and doddered upon him like he was some kicked puppy. _Puppy_ , it was her sickening namesake for the elf.

He was no puppy, he was a little wolf- but even that namesake did not feel right. That had been the moniker Danarius had bestowed upon him during his enslavement and he was irrevocably freed from those wretched chains. He had ripped himself free of that mindless safety netting much like a moth tore itself from the cocoon when the black night beckoned him from the safety of slumber to mindlessly seek out light in the darkness. But he was neither field butterfly nor lunar moth, blossoming in neither sunshine nor shade of night- nor was he was simply a tiger, a lonesome predator seeking out the blood he’d caught in his errant, thirsty snout. When he claimed his own personhood, he’d tried to shed the bestial labels others were inclined to designate, but that untamed predatory feeling always shone through, like perhaps Danarius knew him better than even that strange, unfamiliar elf Leto had known even himself.

But for all the terrible nicknames he’d ever been called, ‘little wolf,’ ‘knife-ear,’ ‘shallow-faced assassin,’ and ‘lyrium whore’- it was Isabela’s designation of simply ‘puppy’ that bothered him the most- because he had found so much comfort in that simple name- an innocent, unassuming status that felt entirely opposite of himself. The strange verbal assignment instilled in him a strange sense of loyalty to the woman he’d abandoned and subsequently hunted and sought to destroy and then searched so desperately for. He found, he realized, an odd comfort in sharing the same title as her dog…

There was no way that was healthy. He was neither dog nor wolf nor any manner of beast… no tiger or snake… neither butterfly nor moth… not elf or human- he was none of these things; he’d made every effort to reject all these labels as a matter of course. As he’d been prior to meeting Hawke, Fenris was determined to be simply himself. He was a refugee without a home, a pilgrim without a calling, a lonesome blank without any kind of corresponding blank to satisfy him. He was an empty vessel, a meaningless cup lacking any means for fulfillment and for the first time since he’d entrusted himself into Petra’s care- he felt well and truly alone.

So he filed that confliction away to be dealt with once more during his meditations where it belonged. When the mornings and the time for self-reflection came after many long nights, he prayed in a terribly empty and mindless manner- disintegrating the sheer idea of it all into some sort of nebulous whole, where he melded with his Templar brothers and humans and Danarius and elves and Hadriana and dwarves and the whole of Thedas… well, melded as best he could- because no matter how hard he tried, thoughts of her clung to the periphery of his mind, haunting him, taunting him, and eluding him all the same because he could not sense her from this inconceivable distance. His meditations would, he suspected, always be a struggle. Despite Sebastian and Petra’s assertions, he grimly suspected he’d never be freed from the blackness that infected him. It was too deep, too far, to ever be cleansed from him.

It was his one unending failure as a Templar- to rid himself of the hatred he’d been wholly infected with for at least as long as he’d been free. It had also been his failing as both a friend and lover.

And in the end, the failure stung so deeply because he wanted more than anything to forgive them. For every indignity he’d ever suffered, for every whip’s lash he’d ever withstood, for every murder he’d ever witnessed or been commanded to commit- he truly prayed for the strength to forgive his masters. He wanted it because the Chant told him that he should…

No… that was untrue. This past year, if anything, had been a time of reckoning- a time to learn his own weaknesses and confront them with his head held high and his face reaching toward the sunlight.

He wanted it because forgiveness would destroy them along with the anger and their tenacious hold over him. It was… a work in progress; a terrible, awkward and sometimes screaming work in progress but a task nevertheless that he dedicated himself to- because he should be strong… and he _should_ have been able to muster that strength within himself by now.

But he had not. His encounter with Marian had proven that much.

Finally touching his bare feet upon the soft Free Marches soil set Fenris’ tumbling head to resting comfortably once more upon his shoulders. The fall air was slightly warmer than that of the cool south, reminding him briefly of the estate in southern Tevinter where Danarius had vacationed when the Imperium summers became too scorching for his elderly body to handle. The northern region of the Free Marches, where Starkhaven resided, would forever linger too close to Tevinter for his tastes. Sebastian could not alter his city’s geography, so it was a cross Fenris chose to silently bear. The elf would have been much more comfortable in Ferelden, where he’d been headed before he met Marian, or even farther south in the Korcari Wilds where he’d hoped to seek asylum amongst the Chasind, where no sane hunter would dare seek to find him- or so he’d hoped.

But those were dreams of what may have been… fantasies that she’d taught him to indulge in, and he could not, would not, regret that they had not come to pass given the life he’d instead opted for in Kirkwall with her. There in the City of Chains had been the strange mage he’d allied himself with and the woman he’d fallen hopelessly and contentedly into, against all rhyme and reason. There in Kirkwall had he found a steady, if uneasy, companionship with a human whose physical and moral fabric simultaneously soothed and ground against him like sand in his mansion’s silk sheets.

But here, away from her and the memories he couldn’t wish to forget, there were the trees, distant from the cold mountains and harsh plains that the elf had been accustomed to in these short last months. Once he set a solid and rough foot into the loamy land of dirt and clay, he clutched his bare toes into the loose, soft earth- and Fenris felt once more at home, pure instinct reminding him of Seheron- the land he could not recall but recognized from the untilled nature of the soil regardless. The fertile fields would scrub the remainders of rich and decadent red Orlesian clay from his weary, calloused feet as they set to trudging ever forward with Witchduck in hand, ignoring all that led him astray. He walked and rode, alternating to ensure Witchduck was rested, and with mindless purpose until he reached Starkhaven once more, uncaring at least in some way of the harsher ground and lofty mountain peaks that in part drew him away from the comfort of his newfound homelands.

The dirt changed dramatically once he entered the principality of the Free Marches. No longer soft, loose and natural, the earth was drier from constant tilling and harvesting- from the industry of farming and feeding the livestock. It itched between his toes, the dried and overwrought soil irritating the bafflingly sensitive space where his toes joined. He found himself having to consciously avoid piles of various animal waste, lest he let the vile substance track behind him into any building he could think to seek refuge within. Elves were generally considered sub-human in their disregard for treading through filth and Fenris was loath to feed into that stereotype, so he tiptoed through pastures until he finally opted to avoid the inevitable cowpies by mounting Witchduck and trotting lazily across the vast fields surrounding the city.

He passed through the heartlands, where farms and Chantries alike provided him a bed to sleep in and a stable for Witchduck gratis upon the revealing of the Templar insignia about his neck. One home even had a rowdy farmer’s daughter that attempted shamelessly to talk her way into his bed, no doubt hoping this mysterious stranger would take her away from her stable life to one of adventure and city lights… but Fenris was disinterested. She was young, maybe twenty but unlikely to be much older, and she lacked a certain fire in her eyes that he craved.

She sneaked into his room in the dead of night, nightshirt unbuttoned and pulled high as she begged him to take her away with him. He was tempted, sorely tempted, to take advantage of her naivety and let himself forget about Hawke for a while… but he couldn’t pretend even for a moment that he could give the girl what she wanted. Closing his eyes against her, against the sight of beautiful flesh laid bare for him, he’d lifted his hands to gently pull her nightgown closed once more as he declared he would not sully her. She’d slapped him, cursing him thoroughly until her father had come to investigate the commotion in his quarters. Then she accused Fenris of attempting to rape her in her desperation to appease her angry father. He’d all but hurled the girl away in his manic flight from the farmhouse, the sound of her father’s bellowing echoing after him as he cantered Witchduck into the night and away from both perceived obligation and inevitable temptation.

Many days later, he approached Starkhaven proper. The long-standing city-state rising like a beacon over the horizon until it showed itself, so terrible and proper, peaking over the landscape until it dominated everything else on the landscape. Dread threatened to overtake his sensibilities, urging him back into the heartlands where his mission would be written off as failure and his life as forfeit. But he was a man of obligations now, and that strange sense of duty drove him ever forward, pushing against the impending horizon and the anger of those it held.

The gates to the city drew open upon his simple verbal command. Like a god before his lands, the chasms opened up before him, leading him down into the hearty dark earth where the greater city of Starkhaven had been buried by the Vael ancestors- defense against invaders so unlike Marian’s own home in even the lowest fortifications in Kirkwall’s Hightown. Those thoughts left his head spinning back into the insufferable hatred he was so incapable of shedding as he continued up the rich hills and up to Starkhaven Castle.

And abject failure weighed heavily on his mind as he finally approached the castle gates and they were opened to him. Witchduck was taken by the stable boy and led away for a well-deserved rest and Fenris was left alone. He had to account for his failings- it was time, he realized as he entered the palace and maneuvered his way through the decadent halls. The twisted and somewhat confusing corridors led him to the throne room where he ducked his head before the Prince. It was time for accounting and reconciliation. It was, finally, time.

Sebastian assumed Starkhaven’s throne as though he had been first, and not third, born to it- perched on a pedestal for the citizens to beg and aspire to. But Fenris knew the man well enough to know that he felt hopelessly awkward, ever attempting to balance the nebulous task of ruling with his own priestly inclinations. He was a capable ruler without doubt but was obviously unhappy with the course his life and heritage and anger had demanded from him. It had been the topic of many conversations between the elf and he… discussions that usually started with the words, “If only Hawke had…” and “If she’d just turned him over…” and ended in terrible silence.

But all those discussions had taken place with a wistful past-tense which failed to absolve both Fenris and the Prince; the burden they’d both taken on when they had personally assumed partial responsibility for what had happened at Kirkwall’s Chantry on that blisteringly hot summer day when the world basically fell apart. They both talked of what they should have done… but in the end both placed the blame solely upon the Champion… and it felt a terrible burden to lay upon her now having finally seen her once more and seen the terrible toll the war wracked over her. Fenris had seen her thin arms and concave belly and the strange, haunted and frightened look on her face when she turned to his voice in Lydes and then simply ran, full-tilt, in the opposite direction.

That, he knew without doubt, had been entirely his own doing.

But what could he tell Sebastian? That she’d claimed to be fighting their own battle? That she seemed to have some plan that he’d neglected to make himself privy to? That after all this time, her lips still tasted the way he remembered? That she was the haven he’d always craved and part of him may never cease to seek her out? So he cowered before his liege as tall as any sane man would when coming to report disaster- shoulders pulled impossibly back, head held painstakingly high, eyes as wide and honest as he could muster to the man he considered his brother through more trials than mere blood bonds and birthing could ever know.

The proscenium of Starkhaven’s throne room was clearly designed to intimidate those seeking audience with the Prince. Two opulent thrones stood center stage, commanding the attention of anyone happening into the room. It was there he found Sebastian slunk regally over the larger throne, an unwilling heir and fearless general, looking simultaneously nervous, haughty and regal before his court- a priest first, rogue second and a prince third. Just as likely to steal coin from your pocket as collect it in taxes, which, Fenris argued, was essentially the same thing no matter what Sebastian said to defend the practice.

“Where is Hawke?” were the first words out of Sebastian’s mouth when Fenris stood before him, lacking any words to say for the moment. Sebastian struck an ever imposing figure even lazed over his throne and the Prince contemplated his fingernails as though searching for some nonexistent grime clinging beneath- the last year had left Sebastian only slightly softer in his physical build but substantially cleaner than his time served under Marian’s lead. Apparently, the Starkhaven heir had always prided himself on hygiene- debauchery as well in his youth- but cleanliness had clearly been at least a second, third or fourth priority nevertheless.

The impulse to inspect his own nails rang solidly through his mind and he quashed the nervous desire down, regarding the Prince instead with a dedicated and steadfast attention. The elf instead replied brusquely, “She escaped.” He fought the urge to stare down at the lush carpet, some gift to the Vael family from a group of artisans somewhere in Orlais, or over at the opulent tapestries that adorned the cold stone walls. Fenris wasn’t a man inclined to pacing or nervous movement and had to fight to resist the need to wring his hands.

The Prince rose, from his throne before muttering, “Leave us,” and dismissing his retinue with an errant wave of his hand before he redirected his focus back to the elf, waiting for the throne room to empty before speaking once more, “And what did she want to discuss?”

“I do not know.” He kept his hands crossed behind him, a pose from his slavery in Tevinter that carried over to the greater lands. Left hand grasping his right wrist, feet spread only slightly, but a bystander could have drawn a straight line between his shoulders and ankles. He held it almost unconsciously, the hated residual aspects of slavery being something Sebastian expected and forgave from the elf but noted nevertheless.

A graceful black eyebrow was raised at him skeptically as the Prince lowered his body back into the throne. He waited moments innumerable for Fenris to offer anything more but his silent pleas were met with just that… silence. So he finally broke the stillness and pressed on. “So what happened at this meeting?”

“We fought,” he answered shortly, fighting back the flush that he felt threatening to overtake his face. “She left.”

“Left?” Sebastian tilted his head at Fenris’ verbal misstep as well as noting the brusque, two-word answers that Fenris tended toward when he was nervous. “That sounds a bit different from escape, don’t you agree? Anything in the middle of that story you care to share, brother?”

Fenris dropped his head, unable to meet the Prince’s eyes. “No, Ser,” he muttered, unable to force himself to respond to the Prince’s familiarity in kind, the thick of failure still sticking to the back of his throat.

The silence that encompassed them was almost deafening before the Prince dared to speak to him once more. “I’m amazed she was able to lose you. She’s not terribly skilled at concealing herself without a few rogues around.”

“She did not lose me,” he answered bluntly. He wondered for a moment if he should reveal all he knew but quashed that odd impulse down, knowing it to be the highest treason he could commit not against the Prince, but against one of his only friends. “I know exactly where she is,” he finished with a hesitant finality.

“Then why haven’t you captured her?” Sebastian snapped with a slight impatience back at the elf, letting his turquoise eyes flash his irritation at the elf’s clear withholdings.

If even possible, Fenris bowed his head further and answered. “She’s in Tevinter.”

“Tevinter?” Sebastian hissed and physically recoiled at the Templar’s words. He stood once more and began pacing. Long legs took him easily from one side of the room to the other, easier than a knife cutting through the butter of any insignificant lies the elf could have even thought to offer. “What the Blight is she doing in Tevinter?”

Fenris held a deep desire to pace as well but repressed the urge. Instead, he answered, “I do not know. It’s disturbing, though. The entire ride back here, I tried to imagine what she thinks to find there. It does seem, however, that she is intent on returning.” Those words were true, evidenced not from his encounter with her but from the note he still held in his pocket.

_Fuck Tevinter._

That had been her only promise- true and fierce as they’d been when she spoken it to him before and now, once again. He put his faith in that as the Maker seemed silent to his pleas.

The Prince came to a stop and took a moment to contemplate the elf’s words. He moved instead over to the window, gazing out at Starkhaven and then to the plains and mountains beyond. “Perhaps the rumors that she’s split from Anders are true,” he mused over his shoulder.

“Perhaps,” the elf agreed hesitantly, recognizing Sebastian’s pose as one of a snake about to strike. “She insisted that she had no idea where he was hiding. Indeed, she seemed to be very much opposed to what he’d done.”

His expectations were met when the Prince spoke again. “Something you’d know if you hadn’t fallen into bed with her. That’s it, correct?” It wasn’t an accusation but rather an soft observation. But the words weren’t directed at him, which sent his stomach to sinking immediately as he realized to whom Sebastian had aimed his words. There was no space in time, no ability to ready himself from the simple assault when another, horrible voice sounded it’s presence.

“Into bed? Oh, Fenris…” came a feminine voice from behind him, firm but also so gentle he winced at even hearing it. “Are you alright?”

Fenris squinched his eyes closed, unable to trust his voice not to crack. Petra took his silence as an adequate answer. “Sebastian, may I have a word with the Knight-Captain in private?” the former Knight-Commander beckoned him.

“Of course, Commander.” The Prince abandoned the elf as he’d only done a handful of times before- into Petra’s gentle, brutal hands.

Petra was, in the end, a born soldier from her violent birth to her inconceivable death. Childbirth had slain her mother, ripped her from the earth itself as Petra tore screaming into it. Her father was apparently the sort that could drive a nine-year-old to run from home and fend for herself for three long years before the Chantry found her and took her in. Fenris never asked why she’d run, suspecting the worst of the woman who shied from physical touch, who’d hidden herself away as Knight-Commander, who confessed to a former Tevinter slave that she, too, feared the dark and the night.

As a child, Petra had begged, stole and scratched for her right to survive. Now, she was every bit a woman who could be fed metal scraps for sustenance and would return the gift by spitting chewed-through metal spikes straight into her oppressors’ stubborn foreheads. The inconceivable hardships that bound her into the Chantry became a happy accident that slew any man, mage or beast that stood in her way. She held an inhuman force about her, an unforgiveable maternal ruthlessness that drew the errant mages back to her side even in such a time of terrible strife.

Without another word, Petra spun on her toes with far more grace than a woman of her advanced years should have possessed and walked purposefully from the throne room. Fenris followed dutifully, chasing the elderly woman from the room and into the empty courtyard before she entered her blissful territory, the hated Circle that sought to imprison the very woman he’d failed to capture. They ended up in the Knight-Commander’s office, a room she’d been given as de facto leader while Val Royeaux scrambled to occupy the space with another inadequate replacement.

Petra had retired from the Templar order a few years before the Starkhaven Circle fell to the mage uprising that unseated and subsequently executed her successor and his own predecessor as well as most of the other Chantry soldiers. Petra blamed Jarras, the man who’d taken her mantle, for the revolt- stating that the Chantry demanded for a mother’s gentle hand and not a father’s angry fist. Fenris, possessing no memories of either could only silently disagree. When Sebastian had ascended to the throne, his first act had been to beckon the woman from her new, restful life and beg her resume her command. Only a half-dozen mages remained in the Circle, all having returned when they learned Petra held the reins once more.

The office as it stood now housed somewhere between thirteen and twenty cats meandering about the space. They all had names, from Snufflekins to Deidrich and nearly every nonsensical name lingering between- Henry, Psycho, Gallus, Mac, Bumblebee, Dingus, Xavier, Al and so on. The countless animals each held a singular and unique name which only Petra herself remembered. It felt only natural that she’d dedicate herself to animals in the same way she’d dedicated the rest of her life. Her fierce desire to keep mages was replaced by the compulsion to keep felines in a similar sort of safety. Cats, she’d confessed once after a few glasses of wine, held a stronger connection to the Fade than any animal counterpart- they became skittish in the presence of a Fade-breach and struck fear into demons. No one knew precisely why but she surrounded herself with felines and encouraged them to wander through the Circle.

Mages seemed to love them, cuddling and coddling them in their opted imprisonment. Perhaps her relentless exposure to magic brought her some unknown clarity to demons and their ways… but constant presence of the cats remained a singular force in her arsenal. It reminded him of Anders and Tevinter, where cats were also encouraged to run free. He hated cats- always had. Marian was predisposed her dog, the mabari hound never ceasing to intuit her emotions and ground her as surely as she commanded him to rip out her enemies’ throats.

In any case, it was in that assumed, cat-filled office that Fenris stood before his mentor, the terribly soft woman who had conducted his training… Petra, the one woman who could shame his actions with the fierce surety she’d conducted the rest of her life. Guilt weighed a heavy collar over his neck and he had no excuse, no reparation that would pardon his failure. They stood alone in the abandoned office, an errant Knight and her prized pupil- awkward and heavy as they regarded one another before Petra finally gathered the nerve to break the thick veil of quiet that hung between them.

“It wasn’t as easy as you’d hoped,” she observed softly. Her face was heavily lined with age and the words harried the wrinkles along her dark eyes and the edges of her lips. A cat- Winkles, he thought as he struggled to remember- stroked himself along her stretched neckline as she spoke, innocently ignoring the ire he knew the words should have held.

“Pardon?” he asked as he ignored the feline. She betrayed nothing, a weathered porcelain mask had descended over her and he was at a loss to infer her meaning without the ability to read her face.

“Saying you didn’t care was much easier than not caring, wasn’t it?” At his silence, she stroked Winkles’ neck, listening to the animal purr beneath her heavy fingers as a small smile crept over her face. “I’m glad.”

That got his attention and stirred his anger once more. “Glad?” he spat hatefully, ignoring her authority as he ranted. “You’re glad that I let my libido get the better of me and allowed my enemy to escape? Have you gone utterly mad, woman?”

Her eyes flashed dangerously then, Winkles retreated instinctively from his safe-haven in her lap as her brown irises glinted with bright blue at the edges from decades of lyrium use. “Mind your temper, Fenris,” she warned as all the cats retreated from her suddenly threatening persona, “before I mind it for you.”

It was a threat she’d only made good on once when he’d just begun his training. At their introduction, he found some of her questions to be far too personal and he’d openly cursed at her. When he failed to heed the quiet threat, continuing to rage at her with hateful zeal, the former Knight-Commander had slapped him down like a petulant child; his physical form, still painstakingly recovering from the injuries inflicted at his lover’s hands, had spent the better parts of his short convalescence stubbornly attacking the bottom of any bottle he could find and was no match for Petra’s decades of discipline. Her open hand had collided against his face before he could even think to defend himself.

Then the blows had kept coming. A sharp jab against his side. Another slap against his cheek. A horrible blow ricocheting through his chest. He’d tried to fight, to defend himself against the onslaught, but failed utterly. All his blows were deflected and answered with the bite of her brutal fists. The pathetic fight ended with Sebastian barking for Petra to stand down.

“You said he had promise,” she’d accused the Prince coldly, ignoring Fenris as she spun on Sebastian. “And yet all you’ve brought me is some huffing Tevinter brat.”

Fenris wheezed, clutching his aching ribs and forcing the air heavily through his lungs. “You’ve no idea of Tevinter- of the life I’ve led.”

Petra turned her gaze back to the prostrate elf, still on his hands and knees while struggling to rise and reclaim his tattered pride. “I know I’ve led far more of a life than you have, elf,” she sneered haughtily. “Four on the run and seven in Kirkwall, is that correct?”

He’d bowed his head and replied with a simple, hate-filled, “Yes.”

“So that’s eleven. At least you’re acting appropriate for your age. Templars can’t join until they’re sixteen. You have some growing up to do- I don’t train children.”

“I am no child,” he snarled even as his body smarted from her ferocious hits.

“By all means, elf,” her voice took on a softer lilt then while her gaze took on a sort of sad understanding, “let your anger keep you weak. Perhaps you’ll get your wish and she’ll actually kill you next time.”

And with a soft gasp from Sebastian, Fenris had known Petra was right- the woman casually exposing the terrible secret that he kept himself too drunk for weeks to accept… that no thought was worse than the idea of living without Marian. So he threw his worthless life at the mage’s feet, and the treacherous bitch hadn’t even the decency to finish him off properly- so little had he meant to her. And with that he had begun his life within the Chantry, seeking the maturity that would permit him to end her proper.

And it was wrong, he hated to admit it now… so wrong.

His thoughts snapped back into the present, remembering that Petra would not suffer his childish temper. “My apologies, Knight-Commander,” he answered instead, bowing his head deferentially to her authority. “My temper is checked.”

“Accepted,” she answered, letting her tone become docile once more. She sighed with a weariness that spoke of a conversation she’d had dozens of times before or at the very least rehearsed in her head at great lengths. “You are wounded, Fenris, by more battles any one person should know,” she continued in that terrible sage voice of hers. “Denial doesn’t heal it- doesn’t ease it.”

“That I failed my mission makes me weak- a joke to my brethren,” he restrained his snarl with only the apparently endless restraint Petra alone provoked in him. Her mask fell for a moment, exposing for the span of a single second the relentless wave of frustration that had overtaken her. It shamed him, destroyed some small piece of him to fail her in any way.

Just as quickly, the mask was righted and her seemingly limitless patience once more replaced her annoyance. Slowly, she spoke again, enunciating each word as heavily as he’d seen her bring her sword upon her foes. “Battles aren’t always won with blades, Fenris. Sometimes, battles are won when you know you should drop your sword and stop fighting.”

Her words sent his mind into complete and utter disarray. Startled, he stuttered, “You… you wanted me to let her go?”

Another damned cat preened for her attention- Breezes? Bangles? Shit, he was never going to get these names right. Baxter? Was it Baxter?- clamoring to her ankle and demanding her hand over its neck until the Commander caved to her needs and stroked him carelessly, leaning to one side to drop her hand down. Petra pet the beast thoughtfully and responded, “I hoped you’d acknowledge that someone could provoke something inside you other than your damned rage, Fenris.”

Her statement had been as easy as rain could both ruin and save a hot, humid day- as unassuming as the cactus with its deadly spikes and welcome water. It was her nature to be an unsupposing, misguiding and welcome predator, a knife concealed within the dark night for the sole purpose of reflecting light off the moon. However, he was not so easily swayed by her cryptic words and replied dumbly, “But she escaped.”

She allowed the feline into her lap, letting the rutting beast butt against her hand insistently until she began stroking his coarse fur. “But it isn’t the rebellion you’ve been fighting,” she answered with her hated sage wisdom. “It’s her. It’s only been her you’ve fought this last year- hasn’t it?”

He stuttered, sputtering nonsensically for a moment before he answered hesitantly. “I fight because I know where I come from. I fight because she’s one of _them_ ,” he spat.

“You fight because fury has always been easier than the alternative,” Petra replied shortly, the words brokering no room for argument. The cat in her lap was rewarded for his stillness with an easy scruff of his neck, freed from any sort of collar, free to do as he pleased as his chosen master continued, “It is easier than forgiveness, easier than grace… Fenris, you reach for rage because it is _so_ familiar you loathe the sheer thought of reaching out with anything else.”

That provoked his tongue back into a fighting stance. “I fight because Anders razed the Chantry and started a war,” he called back. “I fight to spare the innocent from the Magisters’ rule. I fight to preserve the _freedom_ of those born as men and not mages! Forgiveness and grace are crutches for the weak- what they need is someone willing to fight for them!”

Petra ignored his vehemence as she continued to stroke her heavy fingers over the cat that perched itself in her lap, seeming to be perfectly content despite the continuing rage that coursed through him and aimed itself at her. “You are not a living weapon, Fenris- not anymore,” Petra murmured. “It is high time you claimed your freedom in truth rather than huddling beneath the skirt of another. I allowed you to see her- not because she makes you weak but because it was her influence that allowed you to spare your sister. I let you go because Marian Hawke made you strong- at least once and possibly more times than I’ll ever know.”

_Varania_. It stung to even consider her betrayal. And what was she doing now- that seeming tailor that had become yet another magisters’ whore? What fate had befallen her when she returned to Minrathous with Danarius cold and dead in her charge? He breathed out the sound of his anger in a soft and angry sigh. Only Marian had convinced him to release her… and what was she doing with her life now, freed from his clutches only by Hawke’s own interference? “Beneath her is the only freedom I’ve ever known,” he confessed. Once spoken, the words were an unexpected balm on his anguish- a truth he finally admitted to himself after denying it for so long.

The relief was momentary, as Petra destroyed that single moment of gratified reflection by speaking once more. “And so long as you’re under her, you’ll never be her equal.”

“What do you mean to say?”

“Your heart is tangled… and I cannot say for sure where it could lead. Perhaps she loves you, perhaps she hates you, perhaps she’s waiting and perhaps she’s abandoned the sheer thought of you. But you waited nearly a year for her…. And if she was your lover once more then perhaps she’s been waiting, too.”

“And if she didn’t?”

“Then your question answered itself, didn’t it?”

The discussion brought a headache to niggle against his temples. The constant questioning, the perpetual wonderment… these were not why he’d agreed to Sebastian’s request that he study the Arcane arts that could lie beneath the Lyrium etched painstakingly into his skin. He’d wanted answers and Petra, for all her sage advice, always presented him with more questions. “She’s a mage,” he answered pathetically, knowing the response was unsuitable to the woman before him. “Petra, she’s a hair’s breadth away from being a magister herself.”

She shook her head and scruffed the cat’s neck once more, shaking loose bits of shedding fur as she thought for a long moment. The silence made Fenris reconsider his words, that they could provoke so much scrutiny. “But she took you under her wing,” she replied finally, “and into her bed as well. She did it regardless of what Kirkwall’s nobility and her station had to say about your being an elf.”

The words were painful, made him wince against the horror and truth of Petra’s statement. Nobility tended to foster the most flagrant racists and Marian never encumbered him with any of the whispers or slurs or stigmas she must have faced for welcoming an elf into her bedroom. It was, he understood, a burden that she chose to bear alone. “But she’s a mage,” he stuttered, unable for once to gather the fury that would justify his wretched words.

“And I’m a human,” Petra spat, clutching the animal in her lap in seeming fortitude against the hateful epitaphs spewing from his mouth. “And you’re an elf. But you called her friend. You called her your lover. You designated her every meaningful thing you ever knew to call her. And you have the audacity to stand before me and say that means nothing? She is _everything_ to you, Fenris. And I’d rather see you as an apostate-lover than a man who doesn’t care about anything. It means you at least can care about _something_.”

“She’s a _mage_ , Commander,” he barked back. “She is everything I strive to fight against.”

“Then perhaps your battles are best fought at the bottom of a bottle and not on a battlefield!” she snapped, dark eyes watching the vicious barb cut through him and all he’d accomplished in the last year. The cat snuggled against her in her anger and deemed to seep the fury from her body. She snuggled momentarily with the animal and her anger dissipated before she released him back to the floor where he retreated several steps and turned back to regard his master, unsure if he should run.

Reaching out to stroke the feline, she enunciated her next words far more slowly than circumstances required. “I’ve been understanding. I’ve been forgiving,” she murmured. “I’ve trained you the best I can. But I cannot teach you to grow up, I am not cut out to be your mother.” She gave the elf a long look before contemplating her smooth knuckles for a moment. “Consider yourself discharged from my service,” she muttered sadly… and with an eerie finality as she turned her gaze back to her hands, refusing to acknowledge him further.

“Petra!” he gasped as unadulterated shock began coursing through his system accompanied by a sudden, frantic panic. He moved forward to place himself into her view but the Commander stubbornly resisted the contact, instead continuing to ponder the mysteries within her short nails as she thoughtlessly tore the stability the Circle had introduced into Fenris’ mind utterly asunder. “You cannot! Petra, this is my life!”

She refused to meet his eyes, averting her gaze instead to the cat that began using his leggings as a scratching post. “My mind is made up, Fenris. I release you into Sebastian’s command. Your services are no longer required here.”

“Petra…” he stammered, feeling once more like the world as he knew it was again being incinerated to ash by yet another woman who had become his universe- he stood back, helpless but to watch it burn. It was everything he could do to muster to pride to not scream, howl and wail like a child at the sheer injustice of it all. Then she brought her eyes up to his and in her gaze he saw the terrible parallel between Petra and Marian, of two women doing what they felt was right regardless of who was hurt… even if it was him… especially if it was him. “Do not do this,” he pleaded once more helplessly. “I beg you to reconsider.”

Petra reached out and took his hand within her two freezing cold ones, squeezing the warmth away in a motion he supposed was meant to be comforting. “You’ve learned everything I have to teach you. This is not a punishment, Fenris,” she insisted before dropping one hand back to her lap and the cat within. “What you need will not be found here and you don’t need the Lyrium to survive. I can release you in good conscience, be proud to be the only one I’ve ever been able to follow my instinct on. Consider this my gift to you.” Her movements spoke her resistance, her reticence at the idea of abandoning him- the clutching at her cat, the refusal to meet his gaze… this was hurting her as well… and he became stubbornly determined to wound her once he ascertained her weakness.

“I joined the Templars for answers,” he murmured gently as a terrible, familiar stillness fell over him; the calm veneer would disorient Petra far more than any sort of outright anger. She only dimly understood that his bared emotions were a courtesy he granted due to his acceptance of her authority- a slave’s habit repressed by a free man’s courtship for acceptance. She was used to men who wore their hearts, souls and minds open over their faces, bodies and sleeves. The calm, collected nature with which he could conduct his fury frightened Petra more than any shouts or threats. So instead of a spider, Fenris became its web- beautiful and delicate to inspect but deadly foolish to approach or touch.

“And is it my fault you didn’t find them?” she replied without an ounce of hesitation, if the perceived calmness had at all bothered her, it held no lasting outward effect. “I have no need for a living weapon. I’ve an armory full of weapons, Fenris. What I need are men who can wield them. You’re not one of them- not while you’re clearly so conflicted.”

“I am not conflicted,” he answered calmly, focusing on the lyrium’s burn coursing through his body and feeling it center his mind somewhere far away from his body.

She snarled back, letting the mask slip once more but not bothering to right it. His tense but calm demeanor was clearly rankling her now. “Slavery built you. The Magisters built you. Freedom built you. The apostate _Marian Hawke_ built you. If you cannot acknowledge that your origins play a part in the man you are now then you are of no use to me.”

He pulled the Templar insignia from his neck and tossed it casually onto her desk; but without a second glance, she grasped it in her heavy hands and threw it back to him just as easily. “You earned it, so keep it. You are still a Templar even if I deny you orders to hide behind. Ask your questions and find answers for yourself,” she called, clutching that Maker-damned cat within her arms. “Because a test of your faith is coming… your life is your own and I deny you the ability to blame me or anyone else for it. Do not fall into old habits and let another make your choices for you.

“You are a free man, Fenris. It’s high time you started acting like one.” Her eyes moved from his hands, where she’d tracked the pendant’s trajectory, and up to his chest. Fenris looked down for a moment to see what had captured her attention and nearly groaned. His movement had ripped not only the Insignia free from his neck but also pulled the Lost Memory from its rightful hiding place near his heart.

Refusing to acknowledge the token of Hawke he continued to bear, he tucked the amulet back beneath his armor, safe from Petra’s knowing eyes. “I make my own choices,” he insisted as he took up the pendant once more if only to spite her and hooked it around his neck again.

“Then I hope you can make them quickly enough,” she murmured as she rose and turned away from him, calling only, “Maker preserve you, Fenris,” over her shoulder to signal his dismissal from her presence.

“And you,” he answered dutifully as he turned to slowly stalk away from the office of the woman who’d commanded him for the last year, his stomach roiling uncomfortably from Petra’s accusations and observations. The argument sat poorly with him and, try as he might, he could not shake the feeling that Petra, as always, had been right.

* * *

He spent the next two days wandering about the palace, trying to determine his place in Starkhaven’s grand schematic without confessing to Sebastian that he’d been, essentially, fired from his previous position of Knight-Captain. Easy come, easy go… although nothing in that statement was even remotely true- hardship and personal strife had brought him to the very precipice he found himself standing over- he found a strange comfort in the words regardless. He avoided the Prince, spending the days deep within his meditations, trying to divine what path he should take, and worrying at how he could possibly repair his honor after such abysmal failures… or if he even wanted to anymore.

In any case, he did not have the time to wonder too deeply before the Prince summoned both himself and Petra once more to his side. The throne sat empty for several long minutes. Both Petra and Fenris resisted the urge to fill the empty space with meaningless drivel; anything that needed to be said between them had already been spoken so occupying the silence with hollow words was an exercise in wasted energies. It was something he deeply appreciated about her. They stood together but carefully apart as Sebastian entered the throne room with his retinue whirling about him like a possessed cape flapping in the wind.

“But, Ser…” one began. “You must reconsider. Starkhaven needs a Prince- not a general…”

“Do not bother to question me, Douglas, my mind is already decided,” Sebastian barked back dismissively as he approached the two, beaming with the joyful exuberance of youth as he let a wide smile overtake his face. “We’ve just received word of Anders in the lands southeast Starkhaven. Petra, I need your permission to take Fenris and a group of Templars to apprehend him.”

“Fenris is free to do as he pleases,” Petra answered quickly. He realized with a quick and bitter resentment that the Commander felt compelled to reveal that Fenris utterly displeased her without outright declaring she’d released him from the Chantry. The rotten bitch meant for him to do it himself.

“Then I request permission to take Fenris in the capacity of Knight-Captain as we try to win this war.”

Those words- that damning choice of wording told Fenris everything. He knew. Sebastian’s long glance at Petra and her deliberate exclusion of the elf from the only sanctuary he’d known for the last year spoke of an understanding they’d likely held before he’d entered Starkhaven once more. Sebastian _knew_ what Petra had done; he likely knew her intentions before the elf even returned and for some reason accepted it before Fenris had even told him.

Petra bowed her head to Sebastian and replied easily, “If Fenris wishes to command my men, I shall permit it. I’ve no doubts of his abilities or his will to protect my men.”

“Fenris,” Sebastian finally directed his attention to the errant elf. “Will you lead the Templars against Anders?”

“I will go,” Fenris answered, bowing his own head before turning to glare heavily at the Knight-Commander. “I will lead them regardless of your uncertainties.”

Petra leveled her gaze at him, unassuming and unforgiving. “If I were uncertain of your determination to keep my men safe, I would never permit you to lead them.” It was both a boon and an insult. Her soft declaration reaffirmed her faith in him once more and despite his expulsion from her service, he found a bittersweet comfort in it regardless.

Sebastian continued to reveal his plan with his strange and deliberately neglectful elegance; he had gathered a small battalion of men, numbering ten- Starkhaven required a miniscule army to protect its borders and the Prince knew that overly depleting the city’s defenses would only harm the citizens and the principality he was bound by the very blood in his veins to defend. Petra had also silently acknowledged the shelter Starkhaven permitted and granted him the highest number she could spare- five Templars that were ordered to follow Fenris’ command.

Petra huffed away gracefully after that, likely displeased with the turn of events but hopeless to stop it. Sebastian’s dogged demand for Anders’ head being an unstoppable force against her immovable will… and something had to give. Petra had decided for some reason, that the sacrifice should be hers. Her motivations were clearly something that would require scrutiny later after this whole sordid deal was over and done with.

“This is our chance to finally bring _justice_ to the people he killed in the Chantry,” Sebastian repeated the words Fenris had heard countless times since he’d entered Starkhaven, the nearly maniacal call for justice, ironically enough, and for retribution. The Prince’s hatred of the abomination superseded nearly everything he’d worked for in the past year, only slightly tempered by the fondness the elf knew he’d held for Marian.

Fenris bowed his head and answered, “Agreed.”

“We’ll depart in the morning to take him down together, brother. We’ll stop his reign of terror and bring peace to Thedas once more. Once he’s dispatched,” he asserted, “we’ll see about Hawke.”

“As you wish.”

“No, Fenris,” he corrected softly, a whisper so low the elf had to lean forward to hear it clearly. “It is as _we_ wish- as _we_ have discussed.” A pregnant pause overtook the room as Fenris saw Sebastian struggle to locate the appropriate words, rocking slightly on his heels and contemplating the ceiling. “Fenris, I know you and Hawke…”

“My feelings for Hawke are irrelevant,” the Templar answered, cutting off what must have been some sort of awkward elder-brother romantic insight that Fenris was entirely comfortable doing without. His thoughts were quite clear in their simplicity. “Anders must die. Justice must be served to those he slaughtered. There’s never been a question about that.”

Sebastian leveled a wary glance at him. “And if Hawke is with him?”

“Then she will die as well,” he replied but the stone settling in his gut told him that the solution would likely not be so forthcoming should it be put immediately before him.

Sebastian knew the elf well enough to know that such certainty, especially in regards to a certain apostate were more than a little skewed. So the Prince used the last and most devastating weapon in his arsenal- the utter honesty that existed between them- and said, “I trust you to set aside your feelings and do what is right. I place an inhuman trust in you to strike her down if she stands with him and the evil he has wrought.”

“And I will, Sebastian,” he replied before his stupid tongue continued wagging for him, adding on, “but I do not think she is waging his holy war with him… she put on all appearances of being deeply against what he’s done when I saw her.”

“Which you would know for sure if you were capable of keeping your hands off her,” Sebastian reminded him once more. The hands of the Prince pulled to the temples of his regal forehead and gave several small, circular motions to ease the tension that certainly ached there before he answered patiently. “I pray you are correct and you’ve not been beguiled by a temptress. You and I owe her more than an ignoble death serving beneath that abomination.”

Fenris took a risk and made one final plea on Hawke’s behalf. “She prostrated her very life in hopes of swaying me, Sebastian. That must be worth something.”

“It is something, Fenris, only if it was sincere,” he amended. “Otherwise, we’re duped fools. We’ll only surely know if we find her with him.”

“Agreed,” he answered dumbly before departing to gather his belongings for the trek out of Starkhaven. The pendants, both hers and the Chantry’s, were tucked safely beneath his armor; and his armor, a hated reminder of the life he’d led before he entered Kirkwall, his sword, the ironic Blade of Mercy which duty declared he should have none of, the necessary supplies one would need on a long journey and the basic necessities a Templar was required to carry- a copy of the Chant, four vials of processed lyrium, two holy emblems of Andraste burning and a ring showing only a man with his back turned… the symbol of the Maker abandoning his worldly creations- were the items he took from his dormitory. Even if Petra had ejected him from this Circle, he’d continue in his customs from the last year. He was still a Templar, Petra herself had declared it.

The journey to Anders’ alleged haven was unnecessarily long and treacherous. Illness took three men nearly five days from the gate and they were forced to camp out and wait for them to recover from rather tenacious cases of… social disorders. He shuddered, grateful that on the few occasions he’d sought out a bed partner, when he woke sweating from night terrors or pleasant memories or the nights had gone on too long and sleep wouldn’t come, he’d exercised the good sense to head into Starkhaven’s brothel- the women there were professionals, unlikely to have angry lovers or sentimental attachments to sex- and Madame Gilderlilly kept them clean.

The men’s illnesses prompted Sebastian to engage in a rather emphatic rant about the necessity of decorum in taverns- apparently one of the men had a rather public display of indecency with a serving girl- and restraint towards the daughters of Starkhaven’s workers, which fell as well as silence upon the soldiers’ ears but perked the ears of one Templar which was, he supposed, at least something. After the _disorders_ were sorted out, they trekked onwards once more, winding away from the river and farther south where this alleged gathering of apostates were cowering like dogs.

Two weeks passed before they caught even the slightest wind of any sort of apostate activity. A scout had spotted a man cutting himself near a makeshift garden; immediately following, several plants had blossomed fruit where none had been before and taken several feet of growth to boot. Blood magic. Fenris reported the findings to Sebastian, who only smirked knowingly, before the group pressed onward, closing in foot by agonizing foot, terrified to give away their positions and send the mages into flight. Soon enough, another lone mage was discovered but this one, unfortunately, held the fortitude of a maniac eager to fight men and monsters alike.

The man lunged for Eudare, a young soldier with a new baby at home, not with a weapon or his hands but with his own brutal magic, whipping a line of blood from his wrist that caused that of the warrior to boil from within him. The soldier screamed as the fever overtook him and rendered him into a babbling fool moments before he fell silent, crumpling into the dirt and staring blankly at the warm fall sky, blinking only occasionally when the sun’s rays burned too hot. Blood seeped from his nose and ears as his eyes bathed in a sea of scarlet.

It was too late for Eudare, too late before they could even process the blood mage’s frantic attack but the battalion was in full swing now. A heavy _shink_ sounded before the enemy’s arm was severed at the shoulder but he snarled and kept casting. The mage was easily overtaken but fought with the tenacity of a rabid badger, unwilling to stop regardless of his injuries, snapping and straining until he finally collapsed, twisted like broken vines ripped from the earth, drained of blood and dead before he could be persuaded to give any information. Fenris suspected the man’s heart had given out long before his spirit would have.

That unsettled him.

Even fanatics could normally be pushed to a point where their basic instinct to survive would struggle to rise against the indoctrination they’d been subjected to. This man, however, twitched and bleated in the soil until his body succumbed to death.

It unsettled him greatly. His mind struggled, straining to make sense of what was happening here- but there seemed no sense to be had.

He decided against sharing these concerns with Sebastian- the Prince’s forced demeanor indicated that he, too, understood and was greatly concerned at the vehemence with which the mage had fought. But morale was key and any perceived uncertainty could sway the impending battle to Anders’ benefit. The men knew what they were up against, having had to finish the job the mage had started before they could bury Eudare- the man’s mind was utter mush and there was nothing left on this plane for him. His wife was widowed and his child fatherless.

Sebastian prayed over the man’s grave and swore aloud to personally see that his family was cared for. If the corpse had any thoughts on the matter it kept them to itself but the men seemed heartened to know the meals they provided wouldn’t evaporate if for some reason they didn’t come home.

It was the next night that they finally located the apostate camp. While the night would have cloaked them, the usage of magic in the dark would have blinded and left them at a disadvantage, so they watched from the depth of the trees. They waited on the edges and entered when the early rays of the morning light began to creep along the horizon.

Fenris and the five Templars ambushed the greater camp with the hated Silence, encompassing as much of the area as they could but the mages lingering at the edges were unaffected and attacked with hated brutality. The soldiers followed quickly behind, arrows and rapiers screaming through the air as they began dispatching the blood mages. Then the battle truly began.

Even with the faint sunlight illuminating the battlefield, Fenris had difficulty ascertaining exactly how many foes they were fighting. Once he activated the lyrium, the task only became more difficult. The lyrium had always thrown at least a portion of his consciousness toward the Fade. He saw only a field of energy, saw blood magic and blades clanging against staves and blood… so much blood. But with the savage bloodlust came also the sense of inexplicable calm brought from a weapon singing into the morning. He brought his sword heavily down across the neck of an apostate as she attempted to wrench a demon from the earth. The head had barely begun to topple from her soft shoulders before he turned and rammed the blade deeply into the torso of another mage.

Blood. He saw blood.

So he moved on.

Lifting his sword once more, he cut through two Silenced blood-mages, their sickened gasps cutting through the half-Fade miasma that both sheltered him from his surroundings and allowed him to keep his points of focus as instinct delivered them to him. Defend. Thrust. End. Block. Swing. Kill. Switch. Cut. Finish. The battle-song played through his mind- not the screeching of death’s throes and the squelch of blood spewing from slashed flesh… but of soft bells blowing against one another in the breeze, the sounds of fiddles and night lilies blooming, the echoes of rain and chanting from a place he’d never known in a language he’d never learned…

… he swore he could pick out Marian’s voice within them.

His mind had always become a bit hazy once the lyrium had been activated, it had led to Hadriana’s death, to Danarius’ death, to that first night he’d spent with Hawke- his beautiful blood spattered sparrow- when his mind couldn’t quickly enough anchor itself back into the present after it had been flung so far away. The enemy must perish. Need must be fed. What was left of his mind concentrated on the battlefield, terribly singular but also hyper-aware. His allies were recognized as well as the foes they fought. Somehow, the haze told him where to go and who to assist without much concentration on his part.

Seeing a berserker homing in on Sebastian, he darted across the battlefield, his opponents little more than blurs that brought weapons past him far too late. Strike. Red. Arrows in the sky. More red. But then, for a horrible moment the universe or lack thereof completely ceased to move. A dark mop of hair- shortish. It curled at the ends.

It gave him pause and he felt a hateful reluctance until she turned.

Not Hawke, he noticed and brought his weapon down over her evil shoulder, nearly splitting her torso in twain. But the hesitation had left him open and a burst of blood magic had him victim to another’s magical grip, jerking his right shoulder from its delicate socket as the wizard demanded his very blood rip him asunder. Wild eyes turned to focus on his attacker as he felt the flesh of his arm begin to rip and tear away from his torso. The blade clanged down from his hand, singing sadly as he was numbed to movement even as excruciating pain wracked his body.

A happy arrow thunked through the man’s forehead and Fenris felt the wretched tearing cease in a spray of blood. His blade required both his hands for wielding, so without another glance at Sebastian, he raced forward once more, grabbing a discarded rapier in his left hand and attacking once more with his dominant arm dangling loosely and uncontrollably from his side. He purified the area of the glyphs he’d not noticed, the pain fading back into the living realm as he pierced the heart of another mage. His sword and his body attended to his liege as the Prince cocked his bow, firing a wave of arrows into the sky that dispatched the remaining mages.

As the fury died down, Fenris realized the casualties had been devastating with only one Templar and two of Sebastian’s small outfit remaining.

There was no mistaking it, these rebels had been trained and fortified somehow against attacks that should have destroyed them outright. Even in the hazy moments after he’d deactivated the lyrium, Fenris realized that something was deeply wrong. The battle, bloody and victorious as it had finally concluded, should not have provoked such debilitating strain. Blood mages should not have been able to put up such a strong fight against the Templars in his command, seasoned warriors with the Maker’s righteous fury behind them. Yet here he stood with all but one of his Templars dead and Sebastian alive only through the elf’s concentrated effort.

They were abominations, he realized. It was the only explanation for such unnatural strength. But abominations of what sort? There was no malformation of the bodies, no bulging muscles or ripped clothing. These mages appeared for all intents and purposes to be simply… normal people.

Paranoia began to rush at him in waves. Whatever was happening here was different from anything he’d seen before- in Tevinter or any of the lands he’d traversed through. That was when the horror struck him fully. They looked like Anders, corrupt but passing as normal. Had he taught them to accept spirits as hosts? Was it truly so different from the typical demonic possession he’d always known?

And these were blood mages, something Anders had always openly detested.

What in the name of all to be held sacred was happening here?

He focused his mind, trying to divine precisely what had taken place here, trying to feel the source of such an indomitable energy. But what he felt shot coldness through him that he could not ignore. He did not feel dozens of blood mages…

… he felt only Anders’ mania.

_What?_

Sebastian had run ahead, beckoning the few soldiers and his lone Templar with him before Fenris could even think to tell him to stop. He rushed behind them, praying he could tell the Prince to retreat before it was too late. This was wrong. This was desperately different from the battle they’d prepared for. He caught up just as Sebastian came to an abrupt halt, the Prince eying a lone hound standing in a clearing.

“Fenris,” he stuttered for a moment, righteous bravado evaporated at the sight of one lone dog after dozens of crazed blood mages. “Is that… is that _Hector_?”

At the sound of his name, the mabari turned and barked once as if to answer Sebastian. Terror struck him once more- had he been incorrect? Was Marian here fighting with Anders? The war hound then growled at the sight of Fenris and affirmed the rogue’s question irrevocably. The dog had been especially aggressive toward the elf after he’d wounded his master by abandoning her all those years ago. Even with the friendship Fenris had shared with her and the reconciliation that had eventually taken place, Hector had never really gotten over the elf’s blunder. He was always watching, always growling, always warning him away from hurting her.

With a sickening pull at his stomach, he realized the dog had been right to protect her so ardently from him.

Before he could answer Sebastian, the sound of feet trampling through the brush reached his ears. Then, against every expectation he could have mustered, contrary to every scenario he’d painted in his mind- Carver Hawke emerged, with an expression more determined and dedicated than Fenris had ever seen from the boy. His armor was ragged and his face dirty but even through the retreating Fade Fenris knew in that moment that Carver was not an enemy he cared to face. The erstwhile Templar acknowledged the pair of them with ill-concealed shock before he righted himself and stared at them with a malicious condemnation. Another Templar followed him shortly thereafter, a petite blonde whose horror was directed not at them… but forward to a turned back on the other side of the wood.

Carver directed his voice back to the girl and growled, “Ellis, get back to camp and tell Margot to gather the others and run. She knows where to go.”

She sputtered a bit as she acknowledged the strangers in her presence. “I’m not leaving you alone, Carver. We came together. We’re supposed to stay together!”

Carver lowered his head in Hector’s direction and then jerked his head back toward the elf and the Prince before he growled, “I’m not alone. Now go.”

“Carver…” Ellis tried once more.

But Carver cut her off. “I said _go_!”

She regarded Fenris and Sebastian, stating, “Maker preserve you,” before she spun and sprinted back into the wood.

Carver regarded his two companions with a wry side-glance, “You two really stepped in it this time, haven’t you? Let’s go.”

And he moved forward, commanding the charge of what was left of the miniscule army without permission or apologies, leading them toward the edge of the thicket and to the back of the man standing on the other side. Carver had already drawn his blade and his fear was so thick Fenris could nearly taste it as they broke through the wood and stepped into the clearing.

Fenris recognized the clothing, dark and feathered, recognized the ridiculous ponytail the Grey Warden elected to wear. The robes were tattered from deprivation of proper care. His hair was dull, greasy and lank. It left no doubt that they were standing before Anders in all his wretched, supposed glory.

“Carver…” Anders droned lazily, his posture never changed and remained unnaturally facing forward, “and Sebastian and Fenris, no less. It seems I’m quite the lucky one.”

His voice… it was the voice of Justice that Fenris had only heard once before. The mere sound of it sent the lyrium sparking into a frenzy that he had to struggle to overcome before he found to strength to shout, “Face us, abomination!”

“Shut your trap, elf!” Carver barked back at him before redirecting his attention to the Grey Warden. “You won’t take us. You won’t take any of us!”

But the abomination ignored Carver’s words, offering instead to Fenris, “Face… you want me to face you?”

“Are you prepared to die, Anders?” Sebastian answered for him.

“Die?” The man asked as he turned…

… and Fenris saw that it was not Anders. His hollow eyes sunk deep inside his skull, the whites decayed, the black eyes rolling without seeing, his flesh deliquescing and running away from the bone in certain places. The Grey Warden’s cracked lips tilted upwards in a vicious smile. Fenris could see Anders’ tongue working in his dry mouth, the rotting appendage struggling to enunciate as it stuck against the surfaces in his decomposing maw… but he knew it needn’t the apostate’s mouth to speak. His cracked skin revealed a bright, pulsing blue, thrumming to the rhythm of some imaginary and nonexistent heartbeat.

It became utterly clear, the apostate’s disembodied voice ringing the bells in his mind. The filthy truth was that Sebastian and Fenris had abandoned Hawke and stumbled into a situation where neither had any ruddy clue as to exactly what was happening- they’d excluded themselves from that information personally the moment they declared Marian an enemy. But whatever was happening here was far beyond the depravity and sins they’d prepared for and now they were hopelessly out of their depths, submerged and drowning in some deep black mystery without the proper tools to cope.

“You want me to _die_?” the… the _thing_ that had once been Anders voiced again, his terrible voice simply barking from the Grey Warden’s incapable mouth, which still rolled and moved like it wanted to speak, sickening Fenris as he heard the apostate’s tongue smack discordantly against the words the elf heard.

There was no mistaking it. Anders was already dead. So what were they fighting now? Carver was readying his sword as Anders’ dead eyes flashed blue. His next words shook Fenris to his very core.

“Why should I die?” it uttered and brought up its hands, summoning a burning black flame as the sneer became even more twisted. “I haven’t even begun to live.”

* * *

_End of Chapter 7_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a hard one to write. Seriously, fuck this chapter and all the problems it gave me. But massive thanks to the betas BuriedBeneath and AmericanCorvus for wrangling this monster in and helping me corral this sumbitch into chapter form.
> 
> Also… REALLY sorry to Anders fans. I am going to sit apologetically in this corner and wait for your wrath.
> 
> And as always, many thanks to everyone who reads and reviews, you really have no idea how much it helps motivate me.
> 
> Much Love!  
> Omnom


	8. The Foreigner

Nemesis  
Chapter 8- The Foreigner

“ _I happen to take someone trying to kill me as very personal.”  
Marian Hawke_

“Anders,” she whispered through the ambiguous mists of the Fade as the Grey Warden approached her. “What are you doing here?”

The apostate grinned and leaned against a nonexistent pillar, scuffing his boots carelessly against the ephemeral ground as though it were a solid mass. Even here in the Fade, his smile was infectious, reminding her of the man he must have been some time long before she ever met him. “A man can’t drop in to say hello to his favorite apostate?” he joked sweetly, absently brushing at the dark feathers on his shoulder as he cocked his head inquisitively.

She tried to force her smile back down but failed, accomplishing a wry and friendly half-smirk instead. “You’ve said hello. Now what do you want?” she inquired in a playfully patronizing tone.

“Always business with you, isn’t it?” he replied, twiddling his thumbs casually as he regarded the apostate’s stance. The abomination reached for a friendly tone, even after all that had happened. But there was a mournful sorrow that coexisted with the present merriment; a somber shadow that overtook the waking light… and Anders spoke through it regardless, continuing, “There’s always some catastrophe that needs your expertise.”

“You know me,” she replied with an easy shrug, ignoring the forced levity Anders imposed upon her. “My life is one long, perpetual crisis.”

He threw his head back and laughed, wrenching a short chuckle from her. “You work too hard- you know that, Hawke?”

“I know,” she giggled back in a strangely unfamiliar lilt, letting him come nearer. It was like the old days, before the Chantry and before Anders had shown her what terror Justice was capable of when he nearly killed that horrified girl. It was as though Anders’ death had freed him from the burden of Justice’s influence and the release from his physical body had mended his soul back into a whole, free man.

His expression changed from scampish to serious as he closed the space between them with a few long steps. Anders pushed her hair away from her face and touched the light scar over her cheek. Amber eyes misted over as he observed yet another of the relics he’d left her with; first his Tevinter texts on demons, then the war and now a permanent reminder of Templars’ cruelty- not all of them, she had to remind herself as the flesh itched, not all Templars were like Maison and Alrik.

“I should have trusted you,” he croaked, dropping his head down and looking away from Maison’s marking. “Believe me, please. I never wanted this for you. I never wanted…”

She broke in as the mists from the Fade swirled fiercely around them, “I know, Anders.”

He reached down to take her hand within his two icy cold ones. “I’m sorry, Hawke.”

“Me, too,” she whimpered as tears threatened to take her. “I’m so sorry, Anders. I didn’t know…” but the words fettered off when she looked at his hands, seeing the grave dirt clinging beneath his long nails and the decayed, waxy skin revealing the still blood beneath.

She didn’t need to look up when the deep voice boomed, “Didn’t you?” She knew what was standing before her now- but look she did. And the face of the mage she’d cared for had twisted into an ugly, decayed mockery of the man he’d been.

“Didn’t you?” it growled again, as its hands clawed into her arms, ragged nails slicing into her flesh before they reached up to tear into her face as Justice commenced to ripping into her with a furious, hateful rage; and she, helpless to protect herself, couldn’t even lift her arms in defense as it screeched and tore her body into little more than bloody shreds.

* * *

Hawke jolted from her sleep violently and rolled out of bed, tripping clumsily over her boot and colliding hard against the floor. Stomach roiling uncontrollably, she barely clawed her way to the water basin before her belly began violently emptying itself. The flesh on her body itched with the memory of her time in the Fade. She hadn’t had anything substantial to eat since arriving in Minrathous, so she ejected only a thick, foul smelling slime that lingered, oozing and chalky, on her palate. After what felt like forever, her body finally calmed, her stomach seizing and clenching occasionally long after there was nothing left to purge. Her shaking hand propped up her head, wiping the cold sweat away from her forehead and neck as she looked out the inn’s window and tried to calm her mind.

Nothing tried to speak to her. The world, her mind, and Hoppers were all blessedly quiet. No demon, then, had tried to corrupt her. This, as always, had been just another machination of her overstressed mind and not an attack from the Fade.

The nightmares were the worst, mostly because even though she knew Anders was dead and she’d never had any contact with her deceased loved ones- mage or no- she was never entirely sure if Anders wasn’t somehow trying to reach out to her from somewhere beyond the Veil… she was never sure until the inevitable end when Anders reverted to his current state and she woke, worried and frightened that Justice had found a way to reenter the Fade and locate her. But it couldn’t be Justice coming after her; he was still trapped in the waking world. In that at least, Hawke could take some small amount of relief.

Looking out into the capital of the Imperium, the comfort felt vast and empty, like the very grave she’d dug for Anders that just hadn’t been deep enough.

The night would soon recede from Minrathous; she took her attention to the decorative lanterns suspended enchantingly in the sky and other floating globes of light that _must_ have been magical in nature, which bathed the city in a soft, almost candle-like glow and hid most of the filth and squalor she’d had to walk through to get to the inn. Minrathous in this light seemed almost majestic, dark and wonderful like a cave full of fireflies.

Like Kirkwall, Minrathous was built up into the steep hills to help ward off invasions. Apparently, the favored way to construct Tevinter’s cities was such that would utilize the landscape to fortify them. Also like Kirkwall, Minrathous, too, was a city of chains and stone. Everything had an eerie, ancient quality to it and Hawke mused that the vaunted Dwarven stone sense could have told countless histories from each drop of blood spilled over them. Currently, she was in the Kirkwall equivalent of Lowtown and the abject poverty that kept its citizens subjugated was only accented by the haunting beauty of the greater city above her.

But through her window, bathed in the light of the moon and what seemed like thousands of candles, she could not argue that Minrathous was a sight to behold at night. It was almost enough to make her forget the last eight days.

She groaned, heaving herself up and pouring a glass of water to clear the foulness from her mouth. Minrathous had, thus far, been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster, which was at the very least consistent with the blasted journey as a whole. Apparently, the Common tongue was not at all common here. Even the alphabet was different, rendering her unable to even recognize and piece the foreign symbols together in a meaningful way. She was blind, deaf and dumb to any form of communication. It was a small miracle she’d even managed to take quarters at this tavern, pantomiming and aping her gestures like a blazing idiot until the innkeeper just shook his head and led her up the stairs and into this small closet of a room. She had no idea how much it would cost or if she could even afford it; and that was if the man didn’t try to utterly cheat her. He’d taken ten gold from her, reasonable for a week at least but not much beyond, and had made no effort to take any more from her.

That actually gave her a little faith that the innkeeper was trying to help her best he could. The first day when she wandered outside, he hurried behind her and pressed a piece of paper into her hand. She had stared dumbly down at the scribbles of foreign symbols and gave him what had to have been one of the most confused looks she’d ever delivered. He gestured to the paper and then up, directing her attention to the sign above the doorway. She scrutinized the parchment and then the sign above for long moments before finally realizing the symbols at the bottom of the note bore a strong resemblance to the sign hanging above- they must be the name of the inn. He’d written it down in case she got lost, so someone could guide her back.

His fear was legitimate and she found herself wishing she’d taken Merrill up on the twine she’d offered. The city streets were hopelessly intertwined and she was afraid to journey too far from the inn, lest she find herself unable to make her way back. She could see the Imperial Chantry in the distance but could not for the life of her manage to navigate the streets in a way that brought her any closer; indeed, after six hours of wandering through suddenly blocked off streets, random waterways seemingly placed just to thwart her, and roads so narrow a horse would have been unable to traverse them, the Chantry somehow seemed to be even _farther_ away. Kirkwall had presented similar problems until she’d been there roughly a month but without the obvious language barriers that kept her in a state of perpetual confusion. It must have been part of the cities’ designs to better protect them from invaders.

And Minrathous in the unforgiving light of day was a city that had well earned the spite of greater Thedas. Human and animal waste littered the streets. Devastating runes had been entrenched within the stone surrounding the shops. Beggars scoured every corner for charity, holding their empty hands up like chalices for wine. The few mages she saw openly practiced their craft for sport, performing tricks for the citizens to garner coin for their nearly empty pockets- the common folk, it seemed, were highly unimpressed by the magic cast before them.

She could see the Chantry and the Circle in the distance but she could have been sitting back in the Free Marches for how accessible they felt. The lights extinguished themselves one by one as the sun began to creep over the horizon. Hawke sighed and brushed her hair away from her face to grab a clean basin and a rag before she commenced to scrubbing the night’s sweat from her skin, cleaning herself best she could. She was not about to try and mime out a bath for the innkeeper, fearful of appearing an even greater fool.

With her morning ablutions completed, she strode downstairs as the long, wretched night finally ended. The innkeeper handed her an orange as she passed, smiling and encouraging her through the door with a wave of his hands. Maker, she had no idea what that man must think of her. With the name of his inn tucked safely in her pocket, she sat upon a stone bench in one of the many courtyards and inefficiently peeled the rind from the fruit, ripping tiny shreds away until she could have used it as confetti and thrown herself a genuine pity party.

Thus far, oranges had been Minrathous’ big redeeming factor… once she’d figured out how to eat them without squirting the juice everywhere. It had been a task to eat them at first, the thick rind resisted the bite of her teeth. It wasn’t until she’d watched a vagrant peel the beast that she learned that the tasty fruit lied beneath. She’d heard of them before, naturally, but they’d been a costly luxury item in Kirkwall; the region was too cold to grow them and importing them was prohibitively costly. Fenris had been so jaded against everything regarding Tevinter, she never attempted to bring them in.

The oranges, she would miss. Everything else around this blighted bedrock could rot in the Void for all she cared.

With another weary sigh, she began trying to make her way toward the Black Chantry again, determined today to reach the summit of Minrathous even if it meant becoming hopelessly lost. Morning had just broken and shopkeeps waved their wares at her while passers-by doggedly ignored one another as they all babbled their strange gibberish. She ducked her head down and ignored them as well. It was wise to avoid talking- in her silence, she at least stood a chance of blending in. Moving quickly through the throngs of people, she attempted to navigate her way uptown.

Three hours of wandering, backtracking, pacing, and cursing later, she nearly spun and ran as she recognized she’d stumbled into the Undercity, built into the wretched cliffs like Kirkwall’s Darktown. Before she could even turn, two men materialized from the shadows, one speaking menacingly as he waved a dagger to accent his unknown point- unless the point was that he had a dagger, which in that case, he was being a rather excellent communicator. While she was unsure if their intention was to rob, harm, or kill her, she knew well enough that men in dark alleys brandishing knives generally weren’t the helpful sort.

Well, she thought with a wry smile as she focused her energy, when in Minrathous…

The joke of an assault ended before it even began. She placed her hand on the leader’s chest and with a quick summoning of her will, sent a shard of ice directly into his heart. He fell cold and dead to the ground, letting out not even an utterance of surprise. Without another word, the other man ran screaming away. To the ungifted, it would have appeared as blood magic, which was generally why she avoided it despite it being a very effective way to quickly end a fight in close quarters. The Templars and guards here should know the difference, so she was a little less hesitant to use such a method.

Well, it was official, she decided as she ascended a long set of stairs into an entirely different part of Minrathous- one that was entirely foreign to her. She was lost. Had that river been on her right or her left? Wait, hadn’t she been between it and the Chantry? Why was she on the other side of it? How the Void had she crossed the river to get even further away?

She looked up and began cursing extensively, words and phrases she’d picked up from Meeran that would have set Mother to fainting if she’d heard them coming from the lips of her offspring that also drew the curious stares of passers-by, who must have wondered why this crazy person was waving her fists at the Black Chantry and yelling angry gibberish.

The uncomfortable realization of how utterly insane she must look brought her into a fit of giggles, which likely testified not for her sanity. When the bout of laughter ended, she turned to the small group of onlookers she’d gathered. With a simple shrug and a guileless smile, she began walking along the edge of the inlet, hoping to find a bridge to cross back over as she heard a few people begin to applaud. Whether they thought she was a street performer or just appreciated the impromptu entertainment, she’d likely never know.

When she wandered upon three men, looking thoroughly ashamed, ducking their heads as they exited a building, she nearly fell to her knees in thanks to the Maker. She’s seen men and women alike behave that way before… when they departed from The Blooming Rose after a night of debauchery. The words from the masked prostitute in Lydes replayed quickly through her mind. “If you ever find yourself in dire need of assistance,” he’d said, “Check the brothels.”

She’d easily call her situation fairly dire, so with more shame than Hawke thought she could ever muster, she entered the brothel. Sex and the fragrant smell of smoke clung to the air but this early in the morning the building was remarkably silent. Opulent curtains and wall hangings disguised the centuries-old stone; every surface seemed to be covered in some sort of rich, soft fabric. Even her Ferelden sensibilities were lulled into complacency as she pondered the possibility of decorating her nonexistent home in such lush opulence.

A man approached her, smiling softly and murmuring something she was sure was both lewd and exotic as he brushed his fingers over her arm.

Swallowing her pride, she brushed his hand away softly and answered back, “Please, I need help. I can pay.”

The man began speaking again but she cut him off. “Please,” she repeated. “I don’t speak Arcanum. I just need help.” She reached down and unhooked her money purse- well, Rajun’s if she were going to be perfectly honest with herself- opening it to pull out a coin and showing it to the man before continuing, “Trouble. Danger. Help. Please, I need help.” Hopefully, one of those words would register with the man.

He scrutinized the coin, noticing the foreign currency and perhaps a few of her words, seeming to understand that she wasn’t looking for entertainment. With a serious nod, he placed his hand against the small of her back and led her forward and into a small private sitting room where he gestured her to sit on a luxurious sofa. He left her there, retreating to speak to a woman in Arcanum before leaving the area all together. Long minutes later, another woman entered bringing a tray of tea and breads, gesturing for Hawke to partake. She ignored the bread and the rumbling of her stomach, instead feigning a small sip of tea and waited until the servant had left before dumping the remains into a small potted plant.

After all, this was an act of desperation and not an act of marked stupidity. It would hardly do for her to leave herself open to poisoning. At least a half-hour passed with no interruption; she began to wonder if this had been a bad idea when she heard the door click open, the hinges creaked eerily against the silence hovering throughout the room only to be interrupted by a voice she instantly recognized.

“I know you,” came the words, spoken quietly softly astonished from beside her.

Hawke turned and looked, promptly dropping her jaw insipidly as she gaped at the woman behind her. “Varania?”

“Indeed,” the elf muttered bitterly, gesturing to the clothing or rather the marked lack thereof. “And look how far I’ve come.”

The corset thrust the elf’s meager breasts up and forward into something truly spectacular and a loose silk robe hung negligently over her thin shoulders. Her hair fell behind her shoulders in red and vibrant, shimmering waves, making Hawke feel almost dowdy in comparison, exhausted and half-bathed as she was. “What are you doing here?” Hawke finally asked after several minutes of pregnant silence, realizing her gawking would not speak her questions for her.

An eyebrow lifted with the same grace she recognized from her brother and the elf quirked her lip slightly as though amused. “I could ask you the same. At least I speak the language here.”

Hawke ducked her head bashfully, “I had problems getting a guide. I really thought more people here would speak Common.”

“They do. Uptown. Magisters and merchants and the like- people who intend to travel abroad; and slaves, if it benefits their masters to teach them. Down here,” she let out a mirthless laugh, “No one even thinks to leave from down here.”

It was a sentiment Hawke had heard from countless occupants of Darktown while apprenticing with Anders- a strange, angered resignation and surrender to the lot Fate had provided. She ignored the obvious questions, opting instead for personal ones. “How are you?” Hawke asked, hoping to redirect the conversation into more pleasant waters… but with Varania now living her life as a whore in a brothel, renting out the only part of her deemed of value, it felt like the conversation was only going to become more awkward.

“How am I?” she parroted back dumbly, as if confused that the human had even thought to ask such a question in this place, as the answer seemed evident. “I am… well. All things considered. But enough with your chitchat, why are you in Minrathous, Champion?”

Hawke’s evil tongue seemed determined to conspire against her at every turn and asked unbidden, “Don’t you want to ask about Fenris?”

Varania’s bright green eyes flashed in dangerous irritation, alerting Hawke that she’d hit a raw nerve with the question. “My brother was called Leto and he died long ago. Your Fenris was a stranger to me before he even took those markings,” she spat swiftly before taking a deep breath and continued in a more measured voice. “Now answer my question, what brings the legendary Champion of Kirkwall into a Tevinter brothel?”

It sounded like the beginning of a bad joke but she quashed the urge to make light of the current situation. Varania likely wouldn’t appreciate the finer points of her comic styling so Hawke opted instead for the direct route; it had worked wonders for her in the past. “I am seeking some information from the Black Chantry.”

Hawke was well aware how stupid it was to ask the traitorous elf for help; but in these foreign surroundings even an enemy’s face was still a welcome one, and the familiarity of a known foe was a better alternative than the countless unknown faces beyond.

“Imperial,” Varania corrected quickly, drawing her hands over her arms to stave off some imaginary chill. At Hawke’s apparent confusion, she clarified, “The Imperial Chantry. Calling it the Black Chantry is a guaranteed way to get yourself thrown out. They’re rather testy about that.”

Despite Varania’s slight hostility, she was already proving to be a fountain of information. She smiled graciously at the elf and nodded. “Well, then I am seeking some advice from the Imperial Chantry.”

“You’re quite a ways from it,” Varania mused with a disapproving cluck of her tongue and a small quirk of her lips.

If there was one thing Hawke hated more than anything, it was being spoken down to- and Varania’s condescension irked her more than the elf would likely every know. Regardless, Hawke bowed her head further in deference, gritted her teeth, and whispered softly, “I’m unfamiliar with the city and the language barrier… well, I should hope it’s obvious I’ve had problems there.”

The elf sighed again and asked with no little exasperation, “Where are you staying?”

“Here,” she replied, pulling the innkeeper’s note from her pocket and handing it to Varania. It seemed the elf was intent to help her- or at least had resigned herself to it, which was something at least.

Her eyebrow arched delicately as she read the paper. “Are you sure this is where you’re staying?”

“Yes. It’s a tavern. Why?” she asked with a cock of her head, wondering if the innkeeper had a reputation as being untrustworthy or a scoundrel.

“This is a tavern, Hawke, but they don’t rent rooms.”

A heavy flush overtook her, even further destroying her pride in the wake of her ignorance as she answered, “Apparently, if you flap yours arms like a maniac and speak incoherently enough, people just decide to stop arguing with you.” Oh Maker, the owner must think her all sorts of idiotic, she thought. “What’s the rest of it say?”

“This woman is my cousin,” Varania read off with dutiful measure. “If she is lost, please bring her back to this address. I will see you are compensated for your trouble upon her return.”

The laughter that bubbled from her was nearly uncontrollable. She’d worried the man would try and cheat her yet everything he’d done had been to keep her safe. Somehow, she’d have to find a way to repay his charity. Varania seemed to understand the humor and giggled girlishly along with her. Wiping the tears from her eyes, Hawke asked, “So can you take me to the Chantry?”

“No,” she murmured softly. “I’m not exactly welcome there. They frown on prostitutes screaming curses at the brothers who refuse to pay for services rendered.” She adjusted her robes over the shoulders, a strangely chaste movement in her surroundings that Hawke noted again and filed into her mental inventory.

That came as more than a bit of a shock. Sebastian had told Isabela countless times that the path to the Maker began with piety, humility, and most importantly chastity. It seemed there was more to the Black Chantry than just the blanket accepting of mages. “The Chantry brothers have… relations with others,” she stuttered, hoping to get some sort of clarification lest she make a fool of herself.

“Why wouldn’t they?” the elf answered brusquely. “There is a man here who speaks a little Common- an elf. I wouldn’t attempt deep conversation but he goes to the Chantry fairly often. I’ll see if he’s awake. We all usually have a bit of a lie around on weekdays- not much work to be had. He usually goes to the Chantry in the mornings so he won’t lose clients. I’ll set you up with him.”

Hawke breathed a sigh of relief. “That would be wonderful.”

With that, the elf excused herself without another word, returning nearly an hour later with a male elf, taller in stature than both she and Hawke. Though Varric’s stories had people thinking Hawke towered like a kossith over everyone around her, which led to more than a little disappointment from people who’d heard of her notoriety, she was a remarkably average height; although from the dwarf’s perspective, it was probably an accurate rendition. Varania left them alone with a short nod and disappeared back into the brothel.

Hawke rose to her feet and extended her hand hesitantly, which the elf took within both of his and pressed a kiss onto the inside of her wrist, even with the intimacy of the gesture, it was so chaste she was left unsure if this was a Tevinter custom, a Black Chantry custom, a whore’s custom, or if the man was just overly affectionate.

“I am Lothri,” he began, “Varania say you need help?”

“My name is Marian,” she introduced herself evenly, stuffing down the awkwardness that had plagued her as she took command of the situation. “I need you to take me to the Chantry.”

A soft sound escaped him before he shook his head in shock. “No, no, no, no, no! Not in Chantry.”

A deep flush fanned over her cheeks as she realized what Lothri thought she was asking. “No! I need you to take me _to_ the Chantry, not _in_ the Chantry,” she clarified, praying against all circumstances that the man would understand what she meant.

But the subtleties were lost on the elf, who repeated emphatically, “No! No sex in Chantry!”

“Listen, please just listen! I,” she pointed to herself. “Need you,” she pointed to the man. “To walk,” she mimicked walking using her middle and pointer fingers to stroll along her forearm. “With me,” she indicated herself once more. “To the Chantry,” she constructed a crude steeple as the man looked on with no little confusion. “No sex,” the hand gesture she mimicked for that one was vulgar enough that both she and the whore were blushing red. “Just praying,” she finished with her hands clasped before her.

“Ahhh…” the man nodded his comprehension. “No sex, so… a date?”

She slunk her head down and muttered, “Alright. I suppose I can accept that.’” The prostitute visibly unwound as she asked, “When? Now?”

“Not now. You…” the man stumbled over her translations, “Ahhhh… you will to be here in the afternoon?”

“I will be here. How much?” The man gave her another questioning look and she rephrased, “Money? For me to pay you with? How much?”

He tilted his head back and forth as if having a silent discussion with himself before shrugging and offering, “You come with me. One silver.”

She supposed that even with sex off the table, she was still getting an incredible deal. So she waited patiently in the private parlor until the man re-presented himself hours later dressed in a fashion she could only call demure; a high collar and a light blue cloak. Once they left the brothel, he gestured her to take his arm, which she did, as he began leading her though the maze of streets. Memorization was a futile exercise; all the stone and doorways looked the same but follow him she did, praying her answers would be found in this hated hovel of a city and that this painful detour hadn’t been for naught.

Finally they arrived at the Chantry after only an hour of direct meandering, the building immediately across and overshadowed by the Imperial Circle. Seeing the Circle towering over the city, like a king over his people brought a feeling of near-sickness over her. Mages… anyone… running a country amok and without check… _Maker_ , she hated Tevinter even more. Lothri lead her past the Templars as though it was everyday business. It was appropriate that they ignored her, she supposed, since mages held most of the power here… and these men were unlikely to perpetrate the acts she’d been subjected to in Wycome.

The Templars’ armor differed vastly from those of the Free Marches. The ridiculous skirt was done away with, replaced instead with standard greaves much like guard’s armor. The chestpiece was emblazoned not with a burning sword but rather a golden eye resting over the emblem of a sword interlocked with a winding staff curling around it- to symbolize the Chantry’s unity with mages. That the sword appeared to almost be consumed by the staff, she reasoned, could hardly have been an accident.

As they entered the building, she was struck by the beauty of the architecture. It was even more ornate than Kirkwall’s Chantry with dozens of intricate statues and pews that seemed to have been delicately carved from marble, which glittered with some unknown mineral, catching the light as she moved around them. Black did not seem to be the appropriate word for this Chantry. It did appear, for lack of a better word, to be majestic. The brothers and sisters were indeed dressed in simple black cassocks, with gold and red ropes hanging around their waists, tied in some complicated knot work so meticulously Hawke figured it had to be symbolic, but that was the end of the darkness in this building.

Before moving toward the pews, Lothri stopped and gave her the silver coin she’d paid him as he dropped his own down into the gilded silver offering box before silently indicating that she do the same. The money, she realized, had never been intended as payment; Lothri had just wanted to ensure she entered the house of worship with the proper deference. Armed with that knowledge, she reached into her coin purse and removed two gold, handing one to Lothri, who beamed widely as they plunked that substantial offering in as well. She grinned to herself- Rajun could foot that bill.

The light plinks broke through the near silence, drawing the attention of the nearby Brothers, who smiled gratefully at them but spoke not a word. Lothri seated himself in one of the back pews, bowing his head for a moment before he realized Hawke had continued to move forward.

He caught her arm and stared inquisitively up at her, asking, “You are not to pray?”

“I am here to ask questions, I will pray later,” she smiled back at him.

“Ah,” Lothri said in understanding. “This is how I find answers. You are to find them, too.” The broken Common belied a deeply poignant statement.

She continued walking up the aisle toward the imposing statue of the Maker, so tall he would have easily cleared a house, represented as a man with his back turned and staring skyward so his face was impossible to see, bathed in the skylight of the glass windows above him. She dropped to one knee and bowed her head as her father had taught her, a mage’s genuflection to the Maker- something she’d never been able to do in Kirkwall lest she recklessly out herself as an apostate and had only been able to do in the dead of night in Lothering, when her father would sneak her and Bethany into the Chantry while the Templars and sisters slept.

Because magic was gifted to serve both the Maker and men- and it was his will that mages serve him before any other.

The action brought her some attention from the nearby brothers, who grinned once more at her. The smile that evoked from her was genuine, peaceful as she hadn’t felt in weeks. Perhaps not everything in Tevinter was terrible.

One elderly brother approached her and greeted her in Arcanum. Wincing, she replied, “I beg your pardon but do you speak Common?”

The man smiled easily and took her hands within his. “Indeed I do, foreigner. You are far from your home but you honor the Maker. How can we assist you today, mage?”

Being direct had usually worked for her in the past, so she said, “I’m looking for some information that I heard was held here.”

The man nodded serenely and replied, “The Imperial Chantry holds tools for the salvation of men and mages alike. What did you need to know?”

She paused, collecting her words carefully. Being direct after all was not a license to be foolish. “A friend of mine claimed to have a Tevinter text that detailed a rite for separating a demon from its host.”

“I’m sorry, foreigner,” the man ducked his head sadly and replied. “Your friend was mistaken. The immediate effects of blood magic can be purged but a full possession can only be expelled through the death of the host.”

She chuckled softly and replied with a nod, “I know that. I paid dearly to have the text he was allegedly using fully translated. But the book made mention of another text that could assist me- the Charta Maleficai.”

“That what?” the priest stared dumbfounded at her, dropping her hands and blinking slowly.

“Maker, I hope I’m pronouncing this right.” She slowed her speech and repeated, “The Charta Maleficai. It stated specifically that it was kept here and not in the Circle. May I see it?”

The man’s eyes darkened and narrowed as he grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around, growling in her ear, “ _Get out_.”

She struggled back against him as he shoved her toward the door, “Listen, I just need a few answers and then I’ll be on my way,” she offered quickly, watching dozens of eyes turn on her and the suddenly furious Chantry brother.

“Get out now!” he barked, drawing the attention of the surrounding Templars, who came to his aid in pushing her closer to the building’s exit. With a quick bark from the brother, Lothri was also yanked from his pew and similarly manhandled, shoved to cower beside her as the Templars closed in.

“Leave, both of you,” the priest commanded from behind the warriors. “And do not return.”

She raised her hands up in surrender as the Templars drew their weapons, stating quickly, “I’m sorry. I’m going. But don’t punish Lothri, he just brought me here.”

“Your friend should have better watched the company he keeps,” he spat angrily before turning to her companion and raging at him in Arcanum for nearly a full minute.

Lothri went pale, shaking slightly as he placed his shaking palm over her own still one, bringing it down as he stuttered, “We understand. We go. We go now.”

With that, he took Hawke gently by her elbow and led her from the Chantry and the dozens of faces gawking at the scene she’d inadvertently caused.

Once outside, she muttered to herself, “Well, there’s another religion I’ve pissed off.” She’d been hoping to infuse a little humor into the situation but Lothri was far from amused.

“Shut up,” Lothri growled softly as he dropped her elbow and turned back to the Chantry, looking desolate and lost for a moment. Maker, she knew the Chantry must have meant the world to the prostitute and he’d been kind enough to bring her here. And look how she’d repaid him, getting them both tossed out onto the street like sacrilegious zealots.

“Did they excommunicate you?” she asked cautiously and reaching out to take his hand. At his confused glance, she realized excommunicate was likely a word he’d never had a cause to use before and rephrased. “Can you go back?”

“In one year. I go back in one year,” Lothri murmured almost to himself. Then he looked down at Hawke, eyes alight with unshed tears, and wrenched his hand from hers. Water dripped out as his eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. “Maerial, the Brother… he say you are evil. You pray to the Void.”

“No, Lothri,” she pleaded softly, hoping against everything that this elf would reject the brother’s accusations and trust her. “I’m not evil, you must believe that.”

“No, you are stupid,” he spat before tapping her forehead hard with the backs of his fingers. “Stupid, stupid, stupid woman!” he accented with repetitive soft slaps against her skull before he broke off in a flurry of curses, only a few she recognized from her time with Fenris and the tone of the rest were hateful enough to nearly bring her to tears.

“I made a mistake,” she said realizing Lothri may not understand the quivering words she spoke. Instead, she rapidly offered different repetitions of her sentiment, “It was an accident. Thoughtless. Stupid. Whatever you want to say. I didn’t know it would offend them. I didn’t mean it,” before finishing pathetically with, “I’m so sorry, Lothri.”

Lothri sighed, breathing heavily through his flaring nostrils until his shoulders eased from the tenseness they’d been agitated to. “I know. I… take you to Varania. You not talk to me.”

“I understand,” she answered back as Lothri stormed away from her, leaving her to trot behind him quickly lest she get lost again. In her scramble to keep up with him, she nearly failed to notice the sensation of being watched. She turned back toward the Chantry, seeing a man in long black robes similar to that of the priests, staring blankly at her with a strange inquisitive curiosity.

Darting back to the quickly departing Lothri, she dared another look at the Chantry… but the man was no longer there.

* * *

The walk back to the brothel was conducted in an uncomfortable silence. Lothri dutifully waited when she fell behind, stopping the journey only to grab her money purse and duck into a store. “You wait,” he grumbled, returning a few moments later with a map of Minrathous. The diagram was shoved into her hands without a word.

Given Lothri’s fury and his earlier words about not speaking to him, she ducked her head in her thanks instead of voicing it. His eyes softened for a moment and he said, “You are stupid- very, very, very stupid- but you are not evil woman. I forgive you… but I am angry.” He paused for a moment, struggling against the Common tongue as he tried to select his words from his inexpert vocabulary. “I have nothing. The Chantry make me… what do you say… happy? For the new years? You understand me?”

The grace he’d given her made her feel even more ashamed, if that was even imaginable. Hope- the word he was scrambling for was hope- and she’s stolen that from him for the next year, possibly even longer if his broken command of the Common tongue was any indicator. “I know,” she whispered. “I am so sorry, Lothri.”

“I know. I am angry but I forgive you.” He paused, seeming to gather his words silently before he continued, “The Maker say, ‘Forgive.’ And I forgive. It is mine… thing, how you say, with the room and the men that say you bad…”

“A trial,” she answered and reached out to clasp his hands, understanding that forgiveness was one of the only commodities the prostitute possessed outside of his own body. “Thank you.”

“You are pretty,” he murmured as he trailed a finger down her cheek and over her shoulder, the digit coming to rest over her heart. “But this is pretty,” he clarified as he tapped his finger above where the organ pumped. “Be pretty. You not go to the Chantry.”

“I won’t,” she lied, feeling even worse for deceiving the gracious man before her, seeing as she was already working through how she should break in to see it. The skylights were a point of entry but it would be a task to get up there if the immediate fall down into the building somehow failed to flat-out kill her.

The sun had just begun to set when they returned to the brothel. Lothri moved ahead of her, their disagreement seeming to have come to an understanding. She understood his anger, amply deserved it even. He deposited her back into the small sitting room, leaving to collect Varania but returned swiftly after.

“Varania is to go. Not here,” he breathed in a strange quickness, shallow puffs that rapidly and infinitesimally moved his chest. Panic, she realized as she steadied herself for yet another impending crisis.

“Where has she gone,” she asked evenly, letting Lothri’s panic push her into calmness. If Kirkwall had taught her anything, it was that two panicked minds were far worse off than one even one.

“She no,” he bumbled for his words as he rapidly lapsed into Arcanum and then back into Common. “Varania is here or is home.”

“Could she be at home? Is Varania home,” she replied, thinking home would be a perfectly acceptable place for the elf to be rather than on her back somewhere here. For some reason, however, that Lothri was oblivious to Varania’s whereabouts was proving to be an extreme source of stress for the elf.

“No! She is to be here,” he barked with no little frustration at his inability to communicate properly and her hopelessness to understand. “She is not here, Marian!”

“Could she have gone to the market? To market? To shop? To buy,” she added rapidly, trying to offer as many synonyms that Lothri might recognize as she tried to reason precisely what was wrong.

“She is to be here,” he repeated again. “She is not. Men look for her. She is where?”

The introduction of men searching for the elf sent a chill down her spine. What on Thedas had Varania gotten herself involved in? “Men,” she asked. “What men?”

“Bad men! But they not here.”

“I am fine, Lothri,” Varania’s voice called softly from the door. Hawke turned to see the elf donned in more travel-worthy clothing, a cloak and a soft dress designed to accent her shape. “I don’t usually do my own shopping but I needed a few things. I… don’t get out much, so Lothri was understandably confused.”

Varania and Lothri exchanged more quick phrases, leaving Hawke further befuddled by the foreign tongue before he took two long, hesitant steps away but, even with Varania’s seeming dismissal, remained within the small room.

“Lothri is a dear friend,” Varania offered, “And he worries about me. I appreciate your concern but as you can see, I am quite fine.”

Hawke breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m glad.” But something in this story didn’t add up. Lothri’s clear anxiety at the thought of her having left the brothel amounted to more than friendly concern and the ‘bad men’ he’d mentioned could be any number of equally horrible things. Varania, after all, had returned to Minrathous with a very powerful and extremely dead magister- there was no telling how many people could have taken offense to that. “Varania,” she offered after she gathered her thoughts, “If you’re in some sort of danger, you can trust me. I can help.”

Varania bowed her head as Lothri began rapidly speaking in Arcanum. She listened for a few moments before lifting her hand to silence him. “The help I need, Hawke, is not the sort I think you want to give,” she murmured quietly and regarded the floor quietly, as though utterly fascinated by the knots in the wooden planks.

“I know we aren’t exactly friends but… you don’t have to live like this, Varania,” the words escaped her mouth before she really thought to consider them fully. Minrathous was a city full of dangers and Varania, for all her sins, didn’t deserve to live her life in a fear that kept her shackled to a brothel lest Danarius’ cronies exact their revenge on her. “When I’m ready to return to the Free Marches, you could come with me.”

Every corner of her rational mind screamed at her as the words came from her mouth. She could practically hear Fenris’ voice howling angrily among the racket. This was stupid, unbelievably and unforgivably stupid. To even consider placing Varania among her ranks was likely not going to win her any approval from her allies. But Hawke could no more abandon the elf to her hated fate here in Tevinter any more than she could deny her own very nature. Hawke was a protector, a defender. And if someone needed to shelter themselves behind her- regardless of whatever they’d done, she felt an unshakable compulsion to offer any assistance she could.

Varania’s eyes went wide with confusion as she stuttered, “But… Leto…”

“Fenris and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms right now,” she replied with a wry, self-deprecating smile. “I protected you from him once, and I’ll do it again if it comes up.”

“But you don’t even know me,” Varania whispered as she dropped her gaze back to the floor. Hawke could see her eyes start to shine and fill with water as she met her stare once more.

“No,” Hawke agreed with a shrug, “But you’re a mage. We’re trying to make the world a better place for everyone… and I could always use another ally. And you know about the Imperium as an elf and a mage, I figure your input could only help us.”

“I… I don’t know what to say, Hawke.”

Hawke moved forward and took the elf’s warm hands, squeezing lightly. “Just think about it. I know it would be a big move but it cannot be worse than living here.”

“Hawke, I…” and she trailed off. Varania ducked her head down and stared at their joined hands for long minutes. “I…”

Before the elf could finish her thought, the door burst open to reveal nearly a dozen slavers with more waiting in the halls, each and every enemy facing her angrily with weapons drawn. Lothri retreated to the corner with a shocked cry, ducking down and covering his head with his hands. She drew her staff, prepared to protect the elf at her side before she realized the weapons were not aimed at Varania…

They were aimed at her.

Hawke looked up at the betrayer- Varania… _again_. Maker, how could she have been so stupid? Varania stuttered at Hawke’s gawk-eyed expression, “Please, let me explain…”

“Unbelievable…” Hawke murmured as she regarded the slavers and then Varania once more. “You unbelievable bitch.”

“It was not personal, Hawke,” the elf whispered as one of the slavers moved in wielding rope meant to bind her arms, holding a dagger toward her laced thickly with poison. The mere twang of its odor sent the Fade presence into a lull… magebane. She realized, examining the dozens of weapons that had been drawn, that they were all poisoned. If even a few cut her, her magic would be of little use to her. Fortunately, she’d overcome more insurmountable odds.

“Not personal?” she spat incredulously as she spun, raising her free hand to slap the elf as hard as she could, taking no small delight in the way her red hair whipped through the air as the blow landed and twisted Varania’s elegant neck violently. “I happen to take someone trying to kill me as very personal.”

She could practically see the other mage’s back stiffen as Varania recoiled from her attack, blood dripping from her split lip as she growled, “Don’t you dare judge me. You have no idea what my life has been!”

“Well, I couldn’t wish your fate on a more appropriate person,” Hawke spurted nastily and eyed the slavers who began closing in slowly. She released a telekinetic wave, knocking several of them back as she turned once more toward the woman who’d double-crossed her. “Why?” She snarled, “Why did you do this?”

Varania’s face was set hard as stone and just as unlikely to budge. Gone was the woman who’d helped her, the stranger who had sadly acknowledged her brother in Kirkwall so long ago. The elf pulled a knife from her cloak and drew it firmly down over her wrists, whispering hatefully, “My brother surrendered his life for my family…”

Hawke cut her off with an angry cry, “He didn’t surrender mine as well!” A pathetic yelp escaped her lips as she felt the blood in her body erupt into frenzy. The beds of her nails went red as they began bleeding and the powerful aroma of copper dripped from her nose as it flooded and leaked over her mouth. She couldn’t move; Varania had taken control of her body for the moment. Judging from the sweat breaking out on her forehead, Hawke deduced it was taking a lot of effort on her part to keep the apostate still.

As the remaining slavers moved to surround her, she overpowered Varania’s control for a moment, releasing a flare from her hands that encompassed the room and blasted her enemies into screaming, blazing projectiles. The flame had released the blood-mage’s control over Hawke, so she turned once more, swinging her staff like a club and connecting with Varania’s head with such force her arms shook. She heard Lothri cry out the elf’s name as she collapsed to the ground- unconscious or dead, Hawke didn’t really care at the moment. More slavers entered the room, large brutes and several mages. She’d fought worse, she reasoned angrily as she brought her hand up to wipe the blood away from her mouth and nose, regarding the thick red fluid for a moment before diverting her attention back to the slavers. Bringing the staff up once more, she gifted her enemies with a dauntless and wicked grin, letting them know she’d not be taken so easily as she beckoned them to even dare and try.

Before the battle could begin anew, however, the heavy sounds of boots clattered over the floor, vibrating it infinitesimally against her feet. She felt the Silence fall over the building and panic nearly overtook her mind as she reached for the dagger concealed at her waist, preparing to fight the incoming men until either they or she no longer stood. The other mages jerked visibly as the effect settled over them as well. Six Templars entered the room with their weapons drawn and faces obscured by helmets.

Their presence had halted the battle, both the slavers and herself staring at them in shock. Thoughts of that damned basement at the hands of those meant to protect her kind provoked a near all-encompassing panic. The mark on her face began to itch and fear threatened to overtake her.

She tried to swallow it down, to choke it back into a calmer fury as she barely restrained the desire to strike back against the Templars in hopes of harming the one man she knew did not stand among them. Even through the diminished connection, fires clutched at the core of her mind, demanding an inferno to enflame and cull her Templar nemeses permanently. The flames tickled the edge of her fingertips, begging her for release that would not come through the ringing Silence, praying for the sweet oxygen that would fan them further; the anger at the restraint rose up like a beaten dog starved for meat, Fade monsters scrambling and ravenous for the honeyed food of her own flesh. Temptation and demons licked their forked tongues over her mind, begging her to succumb.

_They are not your enemy. These men mean to help you_ , a voice whispered harshly into her mind, the inelegant staccato breaking through the poisonous acid. His tone left no room for compromise.

Men maddened by unchecked power? How is that different? She silently mused as she lifted her knife higher.

_It is different enough. You know that_.

And then he was gone and her mind was quiet. Hoppers had disappeared once more. She instinctively clutched at the button clasped around her neck with her unoccupied hand, futilely hoping that he’d guide her further… but he’d abandoned her again, leaving her a candle in the darkness left to fend for itself against a relentless and unending night… but she knew he was still there somewhere in the shadows. Hoppers still watched her… and he would return.

She didn’t have time to examine that thought too closely as she pondered exactly what course of action she should take. The slavers remained still as well, sharing the sentiment in a rare moment of solidarity.

But then she saw him enter behind them and she lowered her dagger- the man who had stared at her from the Chantry less than two hours ago.

The man moved into the room and through the slavers, surrounded by Templars but decidedly alone- he was clearly not one of them- appearing both terrible and foreboding in his strange calmness. His cassock, she noted, was like that of a Chantry brother, but the black was accented with a thick ribbon of scarlet trailing from his neck to his ankles and around his broad chest; a golden crest of a single open eye laying in the center. His head was adorned with a mage’s cowl, which partially obscured his face with shadows. The man began speaking Arcanum to the slavers, who faltered in the handling of their weapons and stared at her expectantly.

He approached Hawke, brushing the dagger in her hand aside and ducking his head to whisper flatly into her ear, “Just nod.”

Hesitantly, she did so and the slavers sheathed their weapons. They stared angrily at her, the barely contained rage bubbling to the top. It was… refreshingly familiar. One man darted forward, his weapon ill-concealed, only to be artfully slapped down by the man, who flipped him onto his back and twisted his arm until the sickening pop was drowned out only by the sound of pained screaming as the sword thudded from his fingers.

The man turned his back on the felled opponent and spoke once more to the slavers before returning his attention to Hawke. “You need to come with me,” he said quietly, brokering no room for argument. “Nod to them if you understand.”

She quickly weighed her options, an unknown enemy versus those who had made themselves blatantly apparent. The slavers would likely take her to answer for the crimes she had perpetrated against Rajun or even return her to Kirkwall, the bounty on her head was high enough and Varania had to have known that. In any case, logic stood that alone she held a much better chance against the Black Chantry with their semblance of civility, which they’d demonstrated when they’d tossed her from the building, than with the multitude of men that clearly meant to harm her. She had a choice, a terrible choice, one that could either liberate her or send her to Minrathous’ outlying docks to suffer the fate others seemed constantly compelled to force upon her… or it could see her to the executioner’s block at the hands of the Chantry here; honestly, both felt just as likely.

So she held her breath and looked within, feeling the Fade crackle randomly against the Silence, feeling Hoppers’ presence against her neck once more, and made her decision.

She obeyed the man’s command, nodding dumbly at the slavers before the Templars flanked her and her new companion. The man spoke again and the slavers angrily backed away, leaving the building with furious words and curses. She heard Lothri scramble to the fallen Varania, whispering her name while the elf moaned as she revived, but the Templars had already begun ushering her from the brothel. As soon as they stepped from the building, a Templar unceremoniously clamped a heavy gold bangle onto her arm. Instantly, she felt her connection to the Fade falter even further. It left her feeling heady, drunk like wine, but also inhibited her self-control and she felt it begin to slip away the moment it was slapped onto her wrist.

Even with the calm Hoppers had given her, she could not resist the urge to attack the man who’d weakened her, to at least slap him soundly when her escort caught her unbejeweled wrist and said, “It is a dampener, nothing more. A precaution. We mean you no harm. It will be removed once it is determined that you are not a threat.”

“ _I’m_ the threat?” she laughed incredulously as she pawed at the bracelet to remove it. It wasn’t a purposeful movement, it was like dropping a hot potato- her body just instinctively did it. The bracelet began to sting and her hand dropped away, moments later, the sensation was gone. Thoughts of blood magic reeled through her disoriented mind, what sort of witchcraft was this?

The escort spoke, seemingly unknowing of her internal struggle, “You waltzed into the Chantry asking to be shown a very secret and very forbidden tome. So yes, you are a threat until determined otherwise.”

She retained enough of her ire through the bangle’s intoxication to slur, “And who determines that?”

“You will see,” he answered cryptically and beckoned her to move forward.

They wound through the twilit streets once more, drawing the attention of all the passers-by as they gaped at the captured woman and the slightly excessive entourage that escorted her. It must have been a rare occurrence that would see a mage taken into Templar custody in Tevinter, so people openly watched the show with curiosity and, she realized, fear. The Templars made no move to touch her with the exception of one catching her when her unsteady foot tripped over a loose cobblestone, the man righting her gently until she regained her balance.

The brother who had her thrown from the Chantry scowled at her as they entered, approaching the man leading her and quietly- and angrily- whispering to him in Arcanum. Hawke found herself desperately hating the ancient tongue. Each word accenting further that she was clueless as to what she’d involved herself in. Unfortunately, until someone decided to enlighten her she was resigned to dark ignorance. The escort nodded, responded, and then guided her to keep walking, passing the brother and through the greater chapel until they reached a large, ornate door.

The door itself was easily three times her height and covered in carvings that were tediously tended to. Portraits, scenes, and symbols were all etched into the wood, a representation of Andraste burning was laid off to the side as almost an afterthought, overshadowed by literally hundreds of depictions of others. The faces were too distinct to be generic and too repetitive to be insignificant- a man with an overly long nose, an elf with exaggerated ears, a woman with extremely long hair, and a girl with the hated Tranquil eye carved onto her forehead… and the repeated emblem of a man with his back turned.

The Templars remained within the greater chapel as the brother began leading her farther into the building, through a long, dark hallway, up an impossibly long spiral staircase that was peppered with several locked doors, and into a rather large, opulent office. A massive window occupied nearly the entire circular room, she could see the lights of Minrathous and the Chantry itself far beneath her, feeling more than a little acrophobic as she realized how far from the ground she must have climbed. He beckoned her to take a seat, which she did with a little hesitation, while he stood unnaturally still until another man entered the room. She rose to her feet to greet him.

This man stood an inch or so shorter than she but carried himself with such ramrod posture as to seem somehow taller. His face was roundly boyish even in his advanced years and his greyed hair was shorn short, making him look friendly and approachable; but the rest of him was clearly not so, all lithe severity and sharp angles. The cassock he wore was accented with dozens of intricate knots and the eye blazoned over his chest was closed, not open as the other brothers’. They took a moment to study each other, not speaking, and Hawke had the niggling feeling that this man was somehow familiar despite having no memory of ever seeing him before.

His attention fell down toward her encircled wrist. “Tobias,” the man directed his attention to her escort, “Take that damned thing off her.”

Tobias, she supposed that was his name, strode forward and with a few manipulations of his deft fingers the bangle came free and she felt her mind return to higher functioning before he even resumed his silent post. The Fade righted itself within her mind, leaving the strange spinning and dizziness behind her. The return of her greater intellect had her scrutinizing the stranger before her once more- realizing finally where she was and who he must be. She had thousands of questions to ask. Why was she here? What had this Tobias said to make the slavers back off? Why was the brother so infuriated when she mentioned the Charta Maleficai?

There were far too many questions to ask aloud. So Hawke allowed the silence to speak them for her.

“I am Aurelius, the Imperial Divine Tacitus III,” he said softly and with a strangely sad look on his face. “I apologize for any discomfort in bringing you here but the Templars had to ensure you’d arrive safely and I was not sure exactly who you were.”

She said nothing, declining to confirm or question whoever he thought she was. Until she knew more, her mouth stood alone as her worst enemy. A careless word could have her declared a criminal, could reveal the locations of several camps of apostates, could offend the quiet man presenting himself as a friend. That had been her largest trial of the last year, learning when to hold her treacherous tongue. She instead examined the newly revealed flesh of her wrist, satisfied that the strange stinging from the dampener hadn’t manifested any physical wounds.

“I must say,” Aurelius continued, pulling her away from her inspection, as he strode to a large cabinet, opening it to reveal dozens of bottles of wine. “When I received word that someone had come looking for the Charta Maleficai I knew it had to be tied to the mayhem from the docks a few days ago- a known slaving vessel took port with not a single slave or slaver aboard. I must say, it caused a bit of a stir within the city.” He paused for a moment, scrutinizing a bottle before nodding to himself and uncorking it, pouring himself a drink then pouring one for her as well. The fragrant aroma of dark fruit permeated her nose as she breathed in its scent.

He waited until she nodded her satisfaction before he continued, “A foreigner commandeering _The Bloodied Bandit_ from Rajun Gerthail…” he shook his head and smiled his amusement, “By the Maker that was a feat in itself to say the least. The Guard has been trying for years to charge him with illegal enslavement and you’ve done Tevinter a great favor. But then you left the ship before anyone could come to collect you.”

“Collect me? I wasn’t aware that anyone was actively looking for me,” she responded with a light shrug before taking a sip of her drink. It was Agreggio Pavali; she recognized the distinct flavors as they danced over her tongue, there was truly no other wine like it- although it did feel strange drinking it from a glass rather than directly from the bottle. Luxury was one of the many things she’d abandoned during her flight from Kirkwall. She took another sip, tilting her head slightly back as the wine lingered over her palate.

“Several groups of slavers were certainly eager to find you,” Aurelius commented and took another long drink from his own goblet. “They were tearing apart the docks trying to learn anything about the foreigner who stole that ship.”

“Things tend to go much easier for me if I’m hard to find,” she quipped casually and took another sip. “I’ve learned to assume that the people looking for me generally want me dead.”

“That isn’t true,” he replied and took a long drink of his wine, letting out a pleasant sigh. “After all, we’ve been looking for you, Marian.”

The use of her name caused her to jerk her head out of the comfort she’d been lulled into but the man’s eyes were even and earnest- like he’d expected her to react this way when he spoke her given name. She looked at him skeptically, refusing to give up any ground that this man had not rightfully earned, and replied with a respectful caution, “And just why, exactly, do you suppose I am called that?”

Aurelius tilted his head back and barked out a hearty laugh. It was a confusing answer to her question until he spoke once more. “Of course you wouldn’t remember meeting me. You were far too young.”

She rose to her feet, feeling her heart begin pounding within her chest as she backed toward the door. Where the Blight had she met the Black Divine? Thoughts sputtered around in her head, desperately trying to conjure anything that could tell her where she’d seen this man before. Her mind was reeling… she could retreat, gather her bearings, reason this out, and try again another day. “Stay back,” she hissed as the man made as if to move nearer.

Aurelius raised his hands in surrender and took two steps back, giving her the space she needed before she could bolt from the spire. “Wait, please,” he beseeched her gently. “Do not leave. I met you- Maker, it was over twenty years ago… in West Hill…

“… Marian, I was a friend of your father.”

* * *

_End of Chapter 8_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Massive thanks to my Beloved Betas (trademark totally stolen) BuriedBeneath and AmericanCorvus for helping me out.
> 
> I must say, I’m surprised with the…erm… warm reception Anders got. Or rather, I’m utterly shocked no one flamed the crap out of me. I’ll admit, I never thought to consider him a zombie but it *shudders* fits, I suppose.
> 
> As always, many thanks to all those who read and review and subscribe. You are all wonderful and amazing. If you’re more of a “not in a public forum” sort and you’ve got a critique or a question, you can always message me on twitter @omnomnomanon.


	9. Refugees

Nemesis  
Chapter 9- Refugees

“ _Anders is an abomination your sister allowed to manifest into a psychotic maniac completely unchecked.”  
Sebastian Vael_

Distantly, he heard screaming, but the racket existed in some place far from here. He couldn’t even remember the hit, couldn’t recollect the blow that ripped his mind from his own body, all white hair and slacked jaw. The image of an elven girl kissing his neck blasted through his brain. Somewhere else, he pinned another girl onto her bed. One had resulted in a sound of prudish shock, the other… she only released comments to him in the form of quarter-formed moans.

He shook his head once. Twice. Three times until the memory was banished back into the corners of his mind. Fenris’ head was ringing; clanging like a thousand bells relentlessly and simultaneously struck against the delicate bones of his skull. The wretched sound spun the ground beneath him into topsy-turvy, throwing the dirt and sky to interchanging with one another as they swirled over and through themselves. He stumbled once more to his feet, finding stability against a tree. A dazed hand clutched the back of his head and felt wetness there. He pulled it forward and realized it was covered in the same dark fluid that dyed Marian’s handkerchief a different shade of red.

He didn’t feel any pain. But that fabric and his hand were soaked in scarlet. Blood. His head was bleeding. He couldn’t recall being cut so the skin must have split from impact, not sharpness.

Before he could even process the carnage surrounding him, the sound of a panicked young voice cut through the haze of his muddled mind, “Run! Run! Run! Run! RUN!” the scream echoed through the noise of squelching fluid and rending flesh, each recitation of that single word sounding increasingly frantic.

Where were they? What was happening? Danarius… where was Danarius? The magister would be furious if he was left unprotected…

A lone hand jerked Fenris by his good arm and began dragging him away from the massacre he only just began to see. Pink and red, tubes and gore, organs and rent flesh covering the unassuming wood… what had happened here? Time felt like an emulsion he was suspended within. They could have been here for hours or for minutes, if they’d had the sense to run at all. There was simply no way to tell anymore. Voices, broken and ragged, rasping air in a wretched symphony played into his dumb ears.

Fenris wrenched his arm back, turning back towards the carnage as he heard another familiar throat shout, “We have to help them!”

Sebastian… He raised his unwounded arm to defend the prince… he would know where to find Danarius. Sebastian held a trembling arrow aimed at the abomination that somehow wasn’t Anders. Run- Carver had told them to run. Somehow the archer had missed the boy’s screams. He tried to repeat the words to Sebastian but they tumbled from his mouth little less than a garbled mess; the syllables dripped from his lips with waves of bloody saliva and made no sense to even his own sharp ears, regardless of his effort to enunciate them.

Sebastian glanced at him, his expression revealing an unrestrained panic as he darted to the elf and began pushing him once more from the mayhem. Regardless, Fenris turned back- Danarius had to be amongst the fray. The Templar Deacon hung prostrate from a tree, twitching and groaning, fastened there by some unknown force, organs and blood splayed out for a beast’s feast. Sebastian’s two guards were similarly displayed, nailed to one another in a final repose; both on their knees and embracing the other in a bastardized- and unholy- romance.

He heard the screech once more and dumbly turned his head toward it. Dumb knuckles clenched the sword in his hand for a brief moment… until a startling shock of pain returned the elf to himself. Carver’s unrepentant blue eyes, duller than his sister’s but still burning with the same righteousness, combined with Fenris’ aching cheek left him with no need to speculate where that strike had originated.

The sharp pain brought Fenris back into the present world. His subdominant hand loosened his grip on the blade… and he saw the battlefield for what it was. Danarius was never here. His remaining Templar, Deacon, was dead, his head hung loosely from the tendons of his dead shoulders. Sebastian’s men were likewise extinguished, though the wretch of Anders’ ghost still toyed with their physical forms, propping and puppeting the corpses like dolls on strings, his attention indicated he was disinterested in the massacre as a whole. Decayed fingers twitched to command to bodies to writhe against one another.

Fenris felt an almost uncontrollable urge to vomit. These men of honor were reduced to blood slaves, controlled as lifeless marionettes at the impulse of an utter maniac.

“They’re already dead,” Carver snarled suddenly into his ear. “If you stay, you’re next.”

Sebastian, hopeful fool that he was, was already running back towards the manipulated screams. Fenris dared a quick look at Carver’s face. For everything the boy was, he’d always been a poor liar- and apparently the last year hadn’t seen a concentrated effort on his part to change that. Darting forward, he grabbed Sebastian’s arm and ignored his indignant yawp- beginning the unenviable task of dragging the prince away from the horror they’d encountered.

He shouted with no regard to his volume directly into Sebastian’s ear, “We have to go!”

“We can still help them!” Sebastian screamed and jerked himself nearer to the fray that would see them both destroyed.

Fenris released the rogue’s arm and threw his good elbow at his regal face, silencing him quickly, “It’s too late! We’ve lost this fight!”

The blow dazed the prince; he stumbled, looking about him as though he was unsure of his surroundings. “But we…” Sebastian groaned, giving a final glance to the massacre he’d led his army, to the men who’d died for their faith and took a clumsy step toward them once more.

With a final look back, Fenris growled, “We’re leaving,” and delivered his elbow twice more against Sebastian’s face, silencing the prince for the remainder of their retreat. Surely a few elegant facial bones broke beneath his attack but Sebastian was blessedly unconscious and hefted complacently over the elf’s aching shoulder, dropping his sword to focus on carrying his friend’s weight.

Another nod to Carver saw them both tearing into the woods. Hopefully, Anders would continue occupying himself with ripping the last two members of their pathetic brigade asunder. Hector bounded beside them, throwing his great head into anything that rose in their path, be it blood slave or animal. Bile rose in the elf’s throat and he swallowed it back down along with all the fear and rage and guilt that threatened to overtake him; they’d led those men to their deaths… and then abandoned them to fate’s clutches.

Adrenaline carried Fenris far past his normal breaking point. The remembered sounds of choking and tearing flesh took him even farther, the noise rattling and echoing through his mind until they were well beyond Anders’ reach. But after only the first few miles of running, Fenris was deeply regretting knocking out Sebastian. The man was heavy and his weight left the elf’s gait uneven and clumsy. Carver huffed his impatience at the inconvenience but altered his speed to remain by Fenris’ side without further complaint. It wasn’t until Sebastian began to stir that Carver insisted on a break, bidding them to rest as he crouched near a thin stream.

“We should have enough distance now,” the younger Hawke huffed, seeming to pay special attention to evening his breathing. Dropping to one knee, he began examining the contents of his small hip pouch before nodding once to himself. “Set him down, I need to look at your shoulder.”

With the prince’s stirrings and his injury, Fenris could do little more than awkwardly bumble the load until he caved to reason and looked to Carver. “Some assistance?” he asked flatly. The Templar shrugged and helped hoist Sebastian off his aching shoulder until he was resting peacefully like a blushing bride in Carver’s gallant grip. Having the weight pulled from his back felt incredible but the pleasure was short lived when Carver gave a swift jerk of his shoulder and dropped the prince unceremoniously to the ground in a heap of silk and armor.

Before Fenris could get an indignant word in edgewise, Carver grumbled clinically, “Everything from the waist up comes off. We need to reset your shoulder before I can hope to do anything.” The younger Hawke turned his back on him then, moving to the creek to rinse the dirt and blood from his hands before cupping them together and taking several long drinks of water.

Fenris, realizing he’d have better luck conversing with the various rocks and sticks around him, decided he should just be thankful that the fall was unlikely to add to any of Sebastian’s injuries, pride notwithstanding. A quick glance at the prince confirmed he looked no worse for the tumble, which said frighteningly little considering what they’d just run from, and then Fenris began the painstaking task of stripping his armor. The outer layer was simple enough, several of the catches and clasps required only one hand to undo them, but the buckles and cinchers that fastened the armor to his body were a different story altogether. It was looking increasingly unlikely that Carver would offer any more than token assistance and Sebastian continued moaning on the ground as consciousness found him and the prince discovered it to be a most displeasing condition.

Carver crouched over the errant priest and began dabbing a poultice over the wounds on his face. The elf had not broken Sebastian’s nose as severely as he’d feared and he seemed to have no difficulty with breathing. One of the Circle’s healers would be able to deal with the break, possibly without leaving any evidence that it had ever happened.

A combination of teeth, nails, and sheer strength saw the elf stripped as Carver had commanded. Fenris braced his weight against his thigh as he slumped over and let the sunshine pour over his naked back. His long toes clutched into the dirt almost of their own volition, as if trying to remind him to remain grounded, and his back propped against the jagged bark of a nearby tree, the rough wood felt strange and welcome against both the lyrium and smooth skin between them. The light beckoned his attention and he turned his head up toward it, watching it as it filtered through the canopy, turning the leaves to a brilliant, unnatural green against the blue sky light.

It was a beautiful day and he was covered in blood- some of it belonging to the very men he’d sworn to Petra that he would protect. This day had made him either a liar or a failure. He was unsure which label stung worse.

“Bite,” Carver took at advantage of his inattention to shove a small branch between his teeth and took the elf’s limp arm into his hand. After steadying Fenris’ body against the tree with his other, they exchanged a quick look and the elf slid his eyes closed just as he caught sight of the younger man gritting his teeth.

The agony was severe but bearable. Pained grunts escaped his mouth as Carver manipulated and forced his shoulder back into its socket. Instead of the pain, the elf focused on the sensation of his teeth cutting through the bark and scoring deep into the stick, fixated on the taste of dirt and the slightly sour flavor of the wood itself. When the inevitable pop and the single moment of bright, unshakable pain burst through his shoulder, the lyrium flared dangerously. Carver jerked bodily away from him, both fists raised and eyes glittering in hope of a challenge. A few deep breaths saw the lyrium restrained back into his flesh and Carver relaxed, looking somewhat disappointed at being denied the fight.

He removed the mangled stick from between his teeth and gave a reassuring nod to the other Templar before subtly spitting splinters of wood and bark from his mouth. With a wary glance, Carver stepped closer once more, this time pressing a rag doused in cold water and fragrant herbs onto his shoulder and pushing a vial of some manner of healing potion into his hand before he turned back to Sebastian.

Fenris clutched the medicine-soaked cloth against his shoulder, sighing as he felt the cool begin to penetrate the ache, before he contemplated the potion. While he’d never, ever admit it aloud, he much preferred Hawke’s healing to potions. This preference did not extend to Anders’ or Merrill’s ministrations- the abomination and demoness were never to be trusted. But generally, potions were vague and indeterminate things whilst spellcasting held a much more precise, surgical sort of efficiency. As much as he distrusted mages in general, magic was undeniably more effective than downing vial after vial of the foul tasting tinctures that stood little chance to fully reinvigorate him. He’d elected to suffer countless trials before trusting Marian with his wellbeing… even if her skills were the result of Anders’ training. Anything was better than the vile-tasting potions.

With a deep gulp of air, he uncorked the vial and tilted the glass against his lips. The potion streamed into his mouth, flooding it with the taste of sugar and bile and triggering his gag reflex slightly before he choked the liquid down. Ugh, he’d never adjust to the taste. Fortunately, the value of the concoction made itself readily apparent as Fenris felt his general fatigue lessen and the muscles over his shoulder warm as they began the only slightly expedited process of knitting back together. He sighed and tilted his head back toward the sunlight again before releasing the breath he’d been holding and brought his attention back to the fallen prince.

Sebastian moaned as Carver administered several tests to determine how much damage had been dealt. “Looks like the elf went easy on you. You’re lucky,” Carver grumbled and tilted another vial against Sebastian’s lips, ignoring the other man’s sputtering as he redirected his gaze to the elf. “Anders would have slaughtered you both. What the Blight were you thinking charging in there like that?”

“If I recall correctly, Carver, you were there, too,” Sebastian groaned as he sat up, thin lines of an opaque, reddish fluid leaked from the corner of his mouth but he made no move to wipe them away, although with the blood and various poultices smeared across his face he likely didn’t even notice.

The younger Hawke let out a bark of laughter completely devoid of humor. “You’ll also recall my _sole_ companion and I were rather busy not having our asses handed to us by the fanatics. We were observing. Maker, if we hadn’t been scouting the camp you’d be as dead as the rest of the men you brought.”

“Oh, Maker,” the prince stated dumbly. Fenris watched his skin pale as the erstwhile priest brought his hands up to his face. “The men… we… we left them there.”

Fenris made no move to comfort him, knowing full well the gesture would be unappreciated. Bowing his head instead, the silent prayer he recited for the deceased was all he felt he could offer- given his actions had led to their deaths.

“They weren’t men so much as corpses. They just hadn’t got around to dying completely yet,” Carver answered, plopping down to the earth and stretching his long legs out with a satisfied groan. Before Fenris could snap at the younger man to exercise a little tact, he continued, “So I get word that my sister has bumped up her little vacation to Tevinter and then, lo and behold, I get not one but both of you idiots turning up like bolts from the blue. I might have known you’d be involved somehow.” He shot a wry look at Fenris and added with a twinge of irritation, “And didn’t she kill you?”

“Do I look dead?” Fenris asked before realizing his current condition probably wouldn’t lend him the answer he expected. “Do not answer that,” he added lamely.

That tore the prince from his self-loathing, prompting him to ask, “So you’re in contact with your sister?”

“Of course I am, you dolt. We’re running this rebellion. You may tell the Grand Divine to stick that in her pipe and smoke it,” the boy taunted them haughtily with a victorious sneer, daring either Fenris or Sebastian to challenge his statement.

“I… I just want to understand what’s happening here,” Sebastian stuttered, clearly unused to this arrogant, self-assured version of the younger Hawke. “What was that back there? Was that… Anders?”

Carver leaned back on his hands and gifted a genuinely confused look between the pair of interlopers. “Marian didn’t tell you? Didn’t she meet with one of your Templars before she took off?”

Fenris ducked his head, feeling his ears go red and for a moment he found himself wishing the silence would gobble him up before he was forced to have this conversation yet again. “They didn’t exactly talk,” Sebastian instead answered for him, but not before leveling a long look at the former Knight-Captain.

Carver watched the moment pass between the two. Less than a minute passed before his eyes clouded with wrath and, unthwarted by Sebastian’s pitiful attempt at diplomacy, leaped to his feet and stalked hurriedly toward the elf. “You son of a bitch,” Carver growled, ripping his gauntlets off and dropping them to the ground. “You couldn’t even wait to talk to her before you walked out this time?”

The first punch was easy enough to block… but he sorely lacked adequate defenses against skulls barreling into his own. It was simply a sort of attack that was rarely used since it often dealt serious damage not only to the target but to the attacker as well. He saw stars for a moment upon the collision before righting himself quickly into a proper battle stance. Well, that at least explained Marian’s newfound love for head butting; she’d picked it up from her brother. He’d mused more than once that Marian had a hard head- apparently that particular trait was hereditary.

He raised his hands to Carver in surrender and quickly snapped, “I didn’t leave. She did.” He took a deep breath as the boy backed away seeming ready to hear him out. “I tried to catch her before she left for Tevinter but she had too great a lead.”

Sebastian raised his weakened form between the two men and offered, “Fenris understands the consequences of his actions.”

“Did you at least protect her?” Carver asked angrily. At Fenris’ guilty glance, he barked, “Andraste’s tits, man! Is she pregnant?”

The horrible question rose in Sebastian’s eyes- hoping, praying that Carver’s words were false as he asked, “Fenris… please tell me you didn’t leave this to chance.”

The silence that passed through that shallow grove could have occupied a small continent. Knowing the lack of probability that such a land formation would manifest simply for his reprieve, Fenris answered, “There is a possibility. It was unintentional.”

Carver spun on Sebastian and spat once onto his expensive soft boots. “I will not believe for one minute that you even pretended to think this moron could keep his pants on,” he sneered at the prince, seemingly too disgusted with the elf to even address his actions directly.

“Fenris didn’t meet with your sister for the express purpose of sleeping with her,” he answered with far less assurance than he’d had only months before.

“No, you sent him to fucking kill her, didn’t you? Or did you think raping her would be enough?” Carver growled before lurching forward and slapping the archer with an open palm. When Fenris moved to retaliate, Sebastian held up his hand to stop him. Killing her, battling her, that had never been the plan; it was never their intention. She was to be recovered, captured alive to answer for her crimes. He waited for Sebastian to correct Hawke’s furious brother.

The look Sebastian shot him had Fenris realizing with the clench of this throat that Sebastian had considered all the possibilities, had known the meeting could have left her dead- and regardless had left Marian’s fate in Fenris’ furious, impulsive hands. But raping her… he would never, _could_ never, do that- not to her, not to anyone. Even Hadriana at her weakest, when that bitch had begged for her life and he’d torn out her vile black heart, had been unable to inspire even the notion of that particular brand of sadism from him… Sebastian must have known that, right?

Carver continued raging, “You had to at least acknowledge the potential. I’d expect this from typical bloody royalty but you were a Chantry brother. I thought the Chant meant something to you. Maker, Sebastian- you sent Fenris? You sent someone she couldn’t even fight fairly? You hate her that much?”

Sebastian stuttered for a moment, inarticulate syllables peppered with the trill of his tongue, and Fenris knew with sickening clarity that Carver had been correct in his assessment. Sebastian had permitted Fenris to meet with Marian in the end because he’d known it would hurt her; because he’d hoped seeing him again would be a terrible ordeal. What bothered him now was the question of how far Sebastian thought the former slave could go? And had he himself known that prior to seeing her again, would he have gone along with it? He couldn’t say for certain but those questions twisted something in his stomach. Now… now really wished he could be back in Starkhaven, cursing Petra’s nosiness while she pestered him to talk about his feelings.

“I was hoping to shock her more than anything,” Sebastian murmured finally to the ground, avoiding Carver’s furious glare. “Fenris assured me that he would be fine, that he could remain objective. I did not care to consider your sister’s view on the matter.” He let out a deep breath and raised his eyes to meet Marian’s brother. “It was not the most magnanimous thing I could have done but I did not realize how deeply the wounds ran for both of them. It was a mistake I would not have made if I’d known.

The prince gave a quick glance to Fenris before giving an apologetic nod to Carver and said, “Though in his defense, I frankly doubt your sister was unreceptive to Fenris’ advances, they…”

“Don’t,” Fenris interjected, silencing any more words from Sebastian’s mouth. Now that the deed was done and known, any attempt of defense or justification of his actions had to be carefully meted out or they would only serve to isolate them from Carver- and they needed an ally. Slandering his sister would obliterate that. Sebastian nodded his understanding as well, seeming to expect the elf’s outburst. “I let impulse get the better of me. I will not defend my actions.

“But…” he squinched his eyes shut as he warily vetted his words, hating the need to say them nearly as much as he hated Carver’s understandable scrutiny. “We fought but before we…” He huffed out another sigh, desperately censoring all the words he knew he couldn’t say but may assuage her sibling’s fears- her gasps and moans, her fingers buried in his hair and the muscles of her naked thighs twitching against his cheek, the way she pressed herself desperately against his mouth and hands, the whimpers when she was so close, her voice moaning, ‘I want it’… all things that he most certainly should _not_ discuss with her suddenly protective little brother- before he offered, “I told her she could go, Carver, and that I wouldn’t chase her. I asked her… and she said yes.”

Carver narrowed his eyes, regarding Fenris for a long moment before nodding his head. “That’s something at least,” Carver snarled before turning away, ignoring them both as he returned to the stream and scrubbed his face free of the remaining gore, imaginary as it was.

Fenris and Sebastian had a moment of near privacy but for the life of him, the warrior could not think of anything to say. His mind was reeling from everything he’d just heard. Had Petra known? Impossible, he immediately rejected the thought, Petra knew him better in some ways than even Marian had and never would have allowed it- never would have let one of her officers compromise himself so deeply. But she’d permitted it, allowed him to meet with her… she had to have known the possibility.

Maker, everyone had known but him.

“I’m sorry, Fenris,” Sebastian whispered after long moments of quiet. “I should have trusted you.”

Fenris ducked his head, trying to process everything he’d just heard. The prince had been devious, that much was obvious, but had not been entirely wrong in his deception. If he’d known he was sent to hurt her he couldn’t say for certain that he wouldn’t have gone to do it with gusto, if he would have even given her the chance to speak. “Perhaps you were right not to,” he replied softly, letting the weight of guilt fall over his shoulders.

“You had a right to know,” the archer told him firmly. “I should have told you my motivations.”

“I cannot say my actions would have differed had I known. I need to think on this,” he grumbled, choking his anger at Sebastian, at Marian, back into a dull roar. “But this discussion is not yet done. I’d like to meet on it again.”

“When you are prepared to finish it, I will be here,” Sebastian replied with an understanding nod.

“Fenris,” Carver rose to interrupt the reverie after several more long gulps of water, “what’s that on your shoulder?”

He craned his head to look, missing as Carver smoothly withdrew a small blade and quickly sliced a small cut into his exposed neck. With an inelegant squawk, the elf slapped his hand over the wound before a moment later saw the world spinning violently around him. The blood left his face and he felt a vague pain in his knees when he collided with the ground, shaking and furiously wide-eyed before he pitched face-first into the dirt. Try as he might, his body was completely unresponsive to his commands to fight, to move, to flex even a muscle of his own volition.

Sebastian was over him in an instant- flipping him over and touching his fingers against his pulse to check the elf’s vitality. Even aiming his eyes at the rogue required a debilitating amount of dedication; yet the vision of him still kept coming in and out of focus. All that was awry was reflected in the sovereign’s wild, irritated eyes and an indignant set to his jaw. “What did you do, Carver?” the archer demanded.

“I poisoned him. I figured that much was obvious,” the other Templar shrugged indifferently before turning to tend to his pack, leaving Sebastian with a helpless heap of body and armor. “I’d rather have done it to you but you’ve recently suffered a head wound. And the elf was having difficulty carrying you with his injury. So, you’re welcome. I am being incredibly thoughtful, all things considered.”

“Why?” He growled, “What if Anders finds us?”

“I have a better question for you, Sebastian,” Carver responded nastily. “Who do you think you’re calling ‘us’? Your business is with my sister and she’s long gone. My money is on her staying in Minrathous until your elf’s bastard is born.”

“You know as well as I that your sister wouldn’t rear a child in Tevinter,” he retorted. “Why is she in Minrathous?”

“If you know my sister so well, then why don’t you tell me,” Carver taunted before letting his tone even out and shift into a cool professional cadence. “We need to move. We’re traveling a day east before we make way to the camp.”

“Why aren’t we moving directly to the camp?”

Carver’s voice was absent for so long, Fenris suspected the young man had no intention of answering. Then, so softly his delicate ears could scarcely detect, he heard Carver rasp, “Because we can’t let Anders find us.”

“And how, exactly, do you expect us to get to this camp of yours with Fenris incapacitated?”

“I expect you to carry him. If you have to be standing behind me, I want your hands occupied. You…” the Templar growled under his breath. Fenris felt bootsteps approach and saw the two men standing toe to toe, then heard Carver snarl, “You are nothing more than a turncoat traitor. If you cannot understand that, then perhaps I should have left you with Anders. Surely, he could have found a better use for you than permitting your whining about how terribly unfair I’m being towards the men who tried to _murder my family_.”

Fenris had little doubt that Carver had chosen those particular words to strike deliberately close to home for Sebastian, who stuttered, “I meant no…”

“Then shut your mouth, pick up your elf, and start walking,” the younger Templar uttered in a stone-cold command before his footsteps moved away.

There wasn’t much dignity to be found in being lifted like a ragdoll and slung over Sebastian’s broad shoulders but it wasn’t like he could exactly say anything about it. Even if he could, it was even more unlikely that Carver would accommodate any requests the elf could have made. His mind was becoming sluggish and rather than struggle against it, Fenris chose instead to give in. The battle and flight had taken a toll on his body and he could use the rest.

He also suspected that whatever he was going to find on the other side of unconsciousness was going to be at least somewhat unpleasant.

* * *

His hands were buried in her hair, mouth invading hers, body trapping hers against the cold stone wall. She wasn’t complaining, rather, she was whimpering as the strong hand gripping her posterior assisted in rocking harder against his thigh- both of them completely uncaring that anyone could walk into the foyer and catch them fastened to each other like they were in a brothel and not a noblewoman’s home. The evening of kisses, wine, and teasing had rendered her substantially less modest than usual. Her fingers tangled in his hair before softly stroking the line of his ear with her thumb. He groaned and pinned her hands to the wall beside her head, anything to stop his fingers from pushing her dressing gown off her shoulders and taking her there in the vestibule of her home. The need was nearly overwhelming and her breath gasping into his mouth and hips thrusting against his body as she came closer, ever closer to her goal was not helping the matter in the slightest bit.

Deep breaths. _Tevinter, Hadriana, snow, the scent of stale alcohol at the Hanged Man, her apprenticeship with Anders_ , it saw his desire properly, if unhappily, restrained. With a final groan, he pulled away and unevenly whispered, “Goodnight, Marian.”

“You could stay,” she panted back with a guilty smile, leaning forward to capture his lower lip in a brief kiss.

He gave in to it for a moment and let his mouth whisper over hers. “I am not made of stone, sparrow,” he rasped against her and tightened his fingers over hers.

She wriggled one hand out of his grasp and reached down to caress the nearly painful erection she’d provoked from him with the backs of her fingers. He choked for a moment, desperately trying to recall why he wasn’t supposed to stay and remembering the instant she smiled, “You could have fooled me. Come lie with me. Just sleeping.”

The path to temptation was fraught with little compromises like that. Just a kiss, just a touch, just a taste, just a minute more, just a little more, just once more… he shook his head as his thoughts started spiraling southward again and groaned, “I thought we agreed to take it slow?”

She fastened her lips to his and let her tongue slide sensuously over his before she murmured, “It could be slow,” and loved his mouth again.

This mage was going to be the death of him, he just knew it. He grasped her marauding hand and pinned it back against the wall before he kissed her again, chastely this time; until he heard her release an upset sigh and accept that he wasn’t going to cave to her charms- not tonight in any case and not for a lack of spectacular effort on both their parts. He was still more than a little worried about how intimacy could affect his mind but, more importantly, after his cowardice of the last three years he felt he owed Marian something resembling a proper courtship- or at the very least the closest to one a jaded ex-slave could offer.

She very, very grudgingly accepted that but made it clear on occasions like this one that she was also very, very, very, very frustrated. As if to accent said frustration, she took the opportunity to give his neck just a hint of a soft bite, the edge of it hovering safely away from pain, before pressing a long kiss over it. The message was clear, ‘If I must suffer, so shall you.’ A low groan escaped him as he craned his neck to welcome her touch. It had been three days, at this rate he’d be astonished if he lasted a week.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asked quietly as she pulled away.

He smirked at her and touched her forehead with his lips. “Tomorrow,” he promised.

With that, he tore himself away and strode through the door exiting her home both immensely pleased and insanely unsatisfied. Before he made it even three steps from her home, the small hairs on his neck stood up on end. Years of running and paranoia had left him with a very keen sense of solitude… and he was definitely not alone. Looking up, he was confronted by another form lurking in the shadows. He only saw the man’s outline but could easily make out the telltale signs of feathered pauldrons and a large staff…

…The abomination. No one else carried themselves with that much self-righteousness. Stupid Anders.

He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the shadows where the coward hid. It was a delicious irony that after having nearly six years of unfettered access to her as his protégé, Anders now slunk in the shadows while Fenris was free to enter her abode at his slightest whim. He’d been terrified during the last three years that Anders would take advantage of his proximity and authority, would shape her into a lover and disciple warped by his twisted logic, would seduce her and ruin her.

He knew the lack of such an event could only mean one of two things- that either Anders understood that engaging with Marian would lead to her destruction and defied his affections or, and this was his suspicion, Hawke resisted despite the abomination’s clear and desperate love for her. With a wry, self-satisfied grin, he leaned casually against the door to her estate, making it clear in every way that the abomination would not see Hawke without going through the elf and that he was amply prepared to wait all night.

The figure moved forward and Anders revealed himself, pale and thin even beneath the dim lights. “I need to speak with Hawke,” he said quietly, staying half-hidden by the shadows.

Fenris felt his smirk deepen, rather liking Anders’ disadvantage, and replied, “She’s gone to bed. You can see her at the Hanged Man tomorrow.”

Anders stepped forward, exposing himself to the light and wincing slightly against it. His skin looked waxy and sick, like he hadn’t slept in days. Fenris struggled to remember the last time he’d seen the mage… was it a week ago? Two? The abomination cut off his line of thought with a terse, “Look, it’s important. You must let me see her. I _need_ to see her.”

“I find myself rather unconcerned with your needs, abomination,” Fenris sneered, so thoroughly satisfied at finally having the opportunity to deny the mage access to Hawke in the same way Anders had denied the elf countless times before.

“She’s exhausted,” the abomination had so many times apologized for her absence during the weekly rounds of Wicked Grace at the Hanged Man. He always spoke with a tilt of his head that meant to imply so much more.

But more often than not, it was the quiet, private words, “I may have worn her out,” delivered in a hateful whisper directly into the elf’s ear with a pointed, triumphant stare that typically saw the elf later upending the furniture in his home while he cursed himself for every kind of fool.

Now those pitiful displays made him want to laugh. Marian was his in every undeniable way the abomination couldn’t claim. She’d waited. She wanted. That displayed her affection more than words. He’d waited as well. He hated and stroked himself, worshipped her through his imagination. For three years, they’d behaved. So many times he’d wondered, if he peeked into her window, if he touched her- what would he see, who would censure him?

Anders’ strange, choking sound brought Fenris back to the present. Anders stared at him unreservedly but behind the honey-brown irises the elf recognized, he could see flickers of blue shadows. It provoked memories of the plays he’d attended in Tevinter, standing behind Danarius’ box seat as the activities played out below him. There was one he recalled where a man stood at the front of the stage and shouted his lamentations for his slain sons before the stage mystically became red, and his black silhouette screamed as the mother of his children screeched across the sky.

The man had been encompassed by the red light but here in the present, his adversary was slain with blue. He had no idea why Anders provoked that particular scene but the feeling certainly didn’t bode well.

Now that he examined it he could hear a deeper, second quality to the abomination’s voice. “You must let me see her,” the monster demanded again.

“She’s sleeping,” the elf addressed Anders as he would a petulant child. “Go home.”

Anders began pacing, frantically moving back and forth until Fenris felt an even greater urge to slap him, if that was even possible. “It’s about…” he started, “it’s about something she helped me with. She needs to hear this, Fenris.”

That perked his ears; Marian had made no mention of assisting the wretch before him. “What did she help you with?” he growled curiously.

In a flash, Anders’ desperation morphed into familiar hatred and he smiled, “Hmmm… so it appears she doesn’t tell you everything.” Anders smirked and started to depart, realizing he’d not see Marian this evening, before he stopped and sneered over his shoulder, “You just don’t get it, do you? Even now, you don’t get any of it.”

“Make your point then get out of my sight,” his eyes narrowed.

“You were abused in Tevinter,” the monster growled unpleasantly. “I’ve made far more of an effort to understand that than you’ve made to understand the plight of mages. I know that experience must have…”

Fenris cut him off with a snarl, “It wasn’t an experience, mage. It was my _life_.”

“Running and being hunted, held captive,” Anders replied with a strange tilt to his voice. “Yes, I’m familiar with that sort of life. I’ve been chased across the Free Marches. You’re right about one thing, however. The Circle isn’t slavery- it’s a prison. But Hawke and I? Our only crime was being born.”

Fenris shook his head in rage… of course Anders would try to manipulate the slave’s past to make him more sympathetic to his cause. It wouldn’t work- his convictions would see him through. But the wretched mage continued even as the elf spat, “The Circle exists to protect you, Anders. This land understands the danger you pose to yourself and others.”

Ander’s eyes narrowed hatefully. “And you’d see her thrown in Kirkwall’s Circle? Locked away from you and from everyone she cares about?” Anders gestured back to the estate.

“Hawke’s proven that she can live outside the Circle,” Fenris answered. It was true, she’d defied temptations beyond his mortal grasp. She’d battled foes beyond his protection and the plucky mage seemed to win each and every time.

Anders groaned back, “Because she had guidance from her father and the support of her family and wasn’t locked away and terrorized!”

“Look at the life Merrill has made for herself with only guidance and freedom,” Fenris said in a simple, vicious breath. “And you’ve already proven why you belong in the Circle. You proved it the moment you decided to harbor that demon.”

“I took on a spirit of Justice to help my brothers and sisters escape the Circle!”

Without Marian there to mediate the debate, Fenris found all the hateful words he’d never utter to her spewing forth, “You took on a demon because you were afraid of being sent back to it. And in your weakness you validated your captivity, proved to the world that you belong there, that you needed to be _protected_ from _yourself_. So don’t lecture me on the importance of freedom and then whine like a little mabari bitch about the ways you’ve abused it.”

And Anders was similarly unencumbered as he spat, “You’d sentence her there with the rest of us, knowing what happened with Alrik could happen again and could happen to her.” Anders’ voice dropped low as he switched tactics. “What do you think will happen to her when she falls out of Meredith’s good graces?”

“That’s a low blow, mage,” the elf growled.

“She’ll be pinned down, unable to defend herself, and they’ll rape her,” Anders brutally declared. “They’ll wear their helmets so she won’t even see their faces. She’ll wonder, for the rest of her life, which of her _protectors_ did that to her.”

“Shut your mouth, monster, or I’ll do it for you,” Fenris snarled.

“And they won’t stop at once. No, Fenris, they’ll haunt her. Every time she’s alone, they’ll come for her… again and again and again. And she’ll never know if the man standing next to her was one of the men who sodomized her until she couldn’t even stand.”

“I said shut your mouth!” the elf’s hand shot out and grabbed Anders by the throat.

Something glittered in Anders’ eyes then and a small victorious smile crept across his face. The anger at the thought of someone, anyone, harming Hawke dissipated- replaced by a menacing shadow that coursed along his spinal column. Fenris felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise and gooseflesh run over his arms. He couldn’t pinpoint the change in the air, only knew that it chilled his very blood. He stumbled backwards, releasing his grip on the mage as he reeled away. Anders continued staring calmly while Fenris fought the urge to get Hawke and run- as far and as fast as he could.

“They’ll never let us be free,” Anders said with that strange expression and he smiled as he shook his head. “Not her. Not me. Not any of us.”

Anders gave Fenris one long, last look before he let out a bitter laugh and turned to leave. It wasn’t until minutes later that Fenris realized his hands were shaking and his breathing was labored. He dragged his hands through his hair, trying to understand what had just happened. The thought of Marian being violated was particularly painful but that wasn’t what had gotten to him.

Why had Anders of all people rattled him this badly?

He returned to his home. Taking a few bracing breaths, he poured himself a glass of water and splashed some on his face before downing the rest. Stripping off his armor, he crawled into bed, imagining his body curling around hers. What had she helped Anders with? Why hadn’t she mentioned it to him? Logic said it was likely something that happened before their reconciliation but he still felt a stab of betrayal and wondered if she’d felt compelled to hide this from him.

Given this last encounter, he could understand a little of it. Fear wasn’t an emotion he typically succumbed to but the look in Anders’ eyes carved out a good section of his bravado.

The look on Anders’ face; it felt familiar to him somehow. Unbidden, his memory fired and he saw Danarius reverently caressing the mutilated body of a small elven boy, who twitched and choked while his spirit refused to just die. He saw Hadriana mewling like a whore while his master ran a silverite blade over her naked and bloody body. He saw Bartrand, pining and wailing for the imaginary song of the damned lyrium idol. And with a hard twinge in his head, he saw himself standing in front of a mirror, raven-haired and unbranded, bruised and bloody with a brutal sneer on his face. All of them carried the same indefinable expression in their eyes, some mix of determination and pleasure and…

… and what?

More importantly, what was a memory of him before the ritual doing evoked alongside those of Danarius, Hadriana and Bartrand? The expressions were all the same and it wrenched something from his mind that he suspected would have been much better off forgotten. Why had his memory reclaimed that image?

Maker, what had he _done_?

He realized rather abruptly that he’d left Marian alone and the idea of Anders getting near her filled him with bright panic. With a low curse, he untangled himself from his sheets and threw on a simple tunic and a pair of pants. The Chantry bells announced the far-too-early morning when he left the mansion and ran through the empty streets back to the Amell estate. The door would be locked and Bodahn would be asleep, so he didn’t even bother with the conventional entrance. Instead, he scaled the wall to a window he knew Marian nearly always forgot to lock and entered her dark abode. He opened the door to her bedroom, letting the almost overwhelming feral need to be near her, to protect her, overcome the propriety of sleeping apart from her.

She was alone and blissfully asleep for a second before she shot up in bed and summoned fire into her hand. With a twitch, the fireplace and all the candles were lit as well. The sudden abundance of light left Fenris extremely disoriented and he stumbled back against the door as he frantically willed his eyes to adjust.

“Fenris?” came her softly astonished voice, husky from sleep, as all but a few of the candles extinguished themselves. “What are you doing here? Is something wrong?”

What could he say? That Anders’ spooked him? Now that he saw her here tucked safely in her bed, his reasons for coming began to feel very, very stupid but still held an undeniable grip over him. He stood instead frozen in the doorway as his mind raced through possible explanations he could give her.

He was so absorbed in his thoughts he didn’t notice her moving toward him until her lips touched so softly against his cheek. She was dressed in a thin, dark nightgown- horribly low cut over her bosom- and he struggled to keep his eyes above her neckline, opting instead to pull her against him to protect her modesty from his eyes. A sweet exhale left her, like his arms were all she wanted. A broken breath escaped him and he met her kiss, returning it with a gentle one of his own. Her mouth was memorized- another piece of her that he sought to capture. It wasn’t sexual and she seemed to instantly know that, letting the kiss remain soft as she tangled her fingers with his in the same way she permitted her tongue.

“Stay with me,” she whispered softly to him. The sheets would be so sweet against his skin. With a weak look, she began leading him to her bed, holding his hands until her knees touched the edge and then dropping one away as she fell back between the sheets with nary a coy look as the digits of one hand clasped into his own.

“Come lie next to me,” she murmured into the empty air, avoiding him for his own sake. But there was no sexual teasing in her soft plea. Her eyes were innocently large, her body deceptively soft. She whispered, “Please.”

She was never demanding- it was always an option that she never pushed. Just an offering to tell him that he was wanted there.

With a heavy sigh, he pulled off his shirt and dropped it to the floor, electing to leave his pants in place more as a preventative measure than anything else, and followed her between the soft sheets. He curled himself over her, tucking her body back into the security of his arms and focusing on her breathing; the beautiful rise and fall of her chest reassured him that they were each of them safe. She entwined their fingers and let out a contented sound before beginning the return to her quiet slumber.

She fell back into his embrace but craned her neck to regard him directly, “You are… you are everything to me.”

“And you,” he murmured back with a kiss brushing over her shoulder. He spoke it without the jaded, hateful countenance that compromised the feelings that pounded through his chest every time he thought of her. He forgot the magic that he so despised that coursed through her very soul, forgot the raindrops billowing through the storm, forgot the thunder in the clouds, forgot the spark in the inferno. He’d said it because in that moment it was undeniably and utterly true.

The world was still and quiet. She was warm and mercifully, unthinkably still. Their existence carrying no further than beyond their sweet breath. Maker, the affection was so simple he truly believed that it itself could be enough.

Then she’d rolled to face him, insatiable cuddlebug that she was, surrendered her body once more and whispered quietly into his neck that she loved him- so softly he was sure he’d not been meant to hear it. He stayed silent, his body a wretched knot of neurotic tendencies. He was a man more inclined to raise a fist than a friendly finger, would lift a deadly blade before raising his voice… and Marian seemed to sleepily know, and resigned herself to an unspoken understanding. For everything the mage was and was not- she understood.

As the Fade took her away, Fenris stroked his hand over her side and considered his encounter with the Darktown healer. What had she done for Anders and _what_ about the mage had left him so uneasy? Sometime after the first hour of lying next to her unconscious countenance, it had dawned on him what Anders’ expression meant and why it had distressed him so. And he had to tell her… because she may not believe it from anyone else.

It was lunacy. Anders had gone mad, lost to the demon he hosted.

He frantically pushed the image of the younger Leto from his mind, terrified that if he stared too long back into that memory he may reveal the source of it. Instead, the scent of her hair and the feel of her nightgown slipping over her skin drew his focus. Then he’d fallen asleep waiting for her to awaken, utterly unwilling to disturb her from her peaceful slumber because she’d seen so little sleep in the last days… and then he waked to find Hawke had already departed, her final gift to him being a brief lie-in before the world itself was ripped asunder.

* * *

Fenris awoke much later to a sensation very much like being pulled neck first out of a freezing lake. His body ached, he was shaking and gasping until his head spun. The air heaving in and out of his lungs made the dizziness worse and he barely choked back the urge to vomit. His head… Maker help him, his pounding head. Both hands were bound behind his back, trapped in chains… trapped…

Danarius…

Without further thought, the lyrium activated… he could push through the chains and destroy the men who captured him. But before he could loose himself, the younger Hawke appeared and wound his hand roughly into the elf’s hair, wrenching his head up until he felt tiny pops along his neck.

A sound he’d never heard before from the boy growled viciously into his ear, the snarl dripping with malice and the promise of violence, “I know enough about your abilities, elf. But unless you want a fight, you’d best stay put. I will kill you. I will murder you a thousand times over- make no mistake. If you raise a hand to harm any of us, I will kill you. If you try to escape, I will kill you. Understood?”

Fenris managed a painful nod and with that was shoved unceremoniously back to the ground before Carver stormed from the tent. His throat felt like he’d been gargling dirt for at least a week and he was nearly sure that if he were to cough, he’d spurt out dust.

“The lad doesn’t seem too keen on earning your approval any longer,” the prince mused.

The elf groaned as the words grated into his ears, “That is a fortunate turn of events for him, considering he is even less likely to earn it now.”

His companion chuckled softly before he muttered, “Welcome to the center of the rebellion. This,” Sebastian craned his head to indicate their surroundings, “is apparently where they keep prisoners. To your left, there’s a chamber pot.”

“How far are we from Starkhaven?” Fenris croaked the question; his mind still a bit too muzzy and his mouth dry as the desert itself. The headache continued banging relentlessly against his skull, making it difficult to focus on Sebastian’s answer.

“I’m not entirely sure, we took a very unnecessarily complicated route to get here.” Sebastian smiled ruefully and shifted uncomfortably on the ground, “You need to lay off the sweets, you are deceptively heavy.”

“I myself was cursing every cake you’ve eaten since reclaiming your throne when I was carting you from Anders,” he smirked back, wincing at the bright light before resigning to shut his eyes. “What do you think is going on?”

Sebastian, noting his attempt to disguise his agony, gave a short look of pity and nothing more- after all there was virtually nothing the prince could do to ease it. He did, however, drop the volume of his voice to a low murmur when he answered, “A few people came in, they looked like apostates and defected Templars. They asked me a few questions and have been in a meeting ever since, excepting just now when Carver came in to give you the antidote for the poison. That was probably two hours ago. I’m glad you awoke, I found myself getting rather bored.”

“What did they want to know?” he replied, dropping his head to shield his eyes further from the light. It was the only action he could take to ease the pain ratcheting through his skull but the relief wasn’t enough. Focus on something else, he commanded himself. His eyes chose a small ant as a distraction and he watched it with rapt attention while he listened for the archer’s response.

“What are our intentions? Why were we with Anders?” Sebastian trailed off for a moment before finishing, “Who sent us?”

Fenris knitted his eyebrows together for a moment before he responded, “We came on our own.” The ant was carrying a disproportionately large crumb of bread and began trekking over his toe, unaware that its life would be much easier without scaling impromptu mountains.

“They didn’t seem to take me at my word. You and I do not appear to be their favorite people at the moment.”

A lilting voice announced itself with the soft question, “Given the circumstances, can you really blame us? You’re both responsible for Hawke’s absence. You have no idea what unspeakable danger we’ve had to put ourselves in because of you.”

Sharp ears recognized the quiet, whimsical way only Merrill could have delivered such an accusation. A quick glance confirmed her presence- She looked no worse for wear- a little thinner perhaps, slightly older, and by far more wary of the two men bound on their knees before her than she’d ever been before.

She dropped to her knees before Fenris and unsealed a vial before meeting the other elf’s gaze. “Tilt your head back,” she said gently, her tone as always so soft it was easy to mistake it for a request rather than a command.

Fenris barked out a laugh, the sound intensifying the headache immensely for a second, before he sneered, “You must be joking.”

“If we wanted to kill you, we would have done it already,” Merrill reasoned with the sort of logic Fenris found difficult to argue with but when he remained still and tight-lipped, she released a long-exasperated sigh. “I made the poison Carver used on you, Fenris. The headache is only going to get worse if you don’t drink this.”

A quick weighing of his options- drink the vile concoction Merrill presented him with and risk all sorts of tortured deaths, stay put and endure this migraine until it passed over provided it passed over at all, or rise to his feet and attempt to defeat Merrill, Carver, and countless others while simultaneously battling aforementioned migraine- revealed them all to be deeply terrible. Merrill, so far as his experience told him, was highly naïve and, more importantly, an utterly guileless woman. Hawke had mused that she could tell what Merrill was going to do before the elf herself even knew.

Merrill’s eyes shone with the same strange candor they always did. If this tincture were indeed another poison then Merrill clearly didn’t know it. The drumming in his head kept pounding harder and with a defeated sigh, he dropped his head back and allowed the blood mage to pour another disgusting potion into his mouth. The first swallow saw the pain dissipate after only a few seconds and he breathed a sigh of relief at finally being freed from its grip.

When he opened his eyes again, all he could see was green. It took a moment for his eyes to focus on the stem of leaves being held before him in Merrill’s dainty fingers. It was mint, he realized quickly… Marian had always kept a bit of it on her in case Fenris drank any potions. She’d pass a sprig or two to him surreptitiously along with whatever vials contained the cure for his ailments and he’d pop the leaves into his mouth after downing the wretched medicine to help clear the flavor. He’d never seen her offer it to anyone else but, knowing her, she may have been just as subtle with others as she’d been with him. But mint was something he’d never seen the demoness carry, the whimsy blood mage more inclined to pick flowers than anything even remotely useful.

So it seemed Hawke was training Merrill in the healing arts or at the very least swapping tips. That was… extremely interesting. Usually, blood mages made notoriously bad healers and the few occasions he’d witnessed Danarius or Hadriana even attempt the art were peppered with phrases like, “How was I supposed to know that went there?” and, “Stop bleeding, dammit!” and, perhaps the most horrifying of all, “Oops.” Danarius and Hadriana, suffice it to say, couldn’t heal a paper cut without sacrificing at least three goats.

That, tragically, wasn’t even an exaggeration.

Banishing such thoughts from his head, he accepted the mint- gratefully, even- before he spoke again, “What happened to Anders, Merrill?”

She dropped her eyes and whispered, “Anders died. That thing you saw back there… there’s none of Anders left in it.”

“Then what was it?” Sebastian’s voice cut through unexpectedly. Fenris had nearly forgotten the prince knelt here captive with him.

“That’s enough, Merrill,” another woman told the elf sternly but kindly as she entered the tent. “You’ve got company. I’ll watch these two.”

This new woman stood fairly tall for a human from his vantage point, likely roughly his own height. She had light blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail but that appeared to be the only loose thing about her. Her face while attractive was sharply elegant and calculating. Though she gave the air of being wholly unconcerned with their appearance or their actions, Fenris got the rather distinct impression that every shift of their bodies and tic of their faces was being silently noted, recorded, and filed away as she continued to address Merrill.

“Margot, Carver said…” Merrill whispered anxiously, like a youth being told to steal from her mother’s purse.

The other woman smiled with amusement and huffed out a breath of amused laughter with the words, “I know what Carver said. I just want to talk to these two. There’s no harm in talking, right?”

Merrill, clearly looking for an argument to make and finding none, gave an apologetic shrug to Fenris and Sebastian before turning to exit the tent. The other woman, this Margot, lowered herself gracefully to the ground before them, legs slightly akimbo and bent before her, and her lithe arms resting on her knees as she considered the men before her. For minutes, silence prevailed as she scrutinized them, from Fenris’ bare feet to the emblem of Andraste adorning Sebastian’s belt to the regal cut of the monarch’s hair to the Templar pendant around the former slave’s neck.

“Why are you here?” she asked softly, finally.

“We came here to find and defeat Anders,” Sebastian answered with the same quiet.

“Anders isn’t here,” the woman said bluntly as she tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “Why are you _here_?”

Fenris couldn’t resist his chortle as he retorted, “Because Carver Hawke poisoned me into unconsciousness and forced the Prince of Starkhaven to carry me here.”

Laughter bubbled from Margot’s throat, whole and happy as she threw her head back. “That sounds more accurate at least,” she stifled her giggles through the words before managing to contain herself once more. “So you mean that you did not come here to harm us,” she said in a sort of half-questioning tone.

“Only if you stood with him,” Sebastian replied simply.

“And you truly have no idea what’s happened since Kirkwall?”

“Evidently,” Fenris answered with a tired smirk, feeling that was an incredibly stupid question to ask. The woman redirected her attention in a manner that made the elf feel entirely uncomfortable. Her visual assessment was cold, detached as she followed the lines of lyrium to meet his eyes with her dark ones.

“You’re Fenris,” she said decided, tilting her head curiously as she regarded him. “She talked about you. Didn’t she kill you?”

“Do not speak of her,” he replied angrily. He straightened his spine from his near perpetual slouch, desiring to appear somewhat larger beneath the woman’s rather intense scrutiny, and he spat, “You know nothing about her or what she was to me.”

Something flickered in her eyes then, like a faint amusement that she knew something he didn’t. “Whatever she was, you certainly turned your back on it quickly enough,” came her soft and extremely accurate answer.

There was no argument he could make against her, which frustrated him. Maker help him, he _really_ hated people pointing out the obvious, especially when the obvious brought feelings of shame and righteous indignation. “I hardly need to justify my decisions to some mage sympathizer,” Fenris spat instead, trying to steer the conversation away from Marian and everything he’d done.

She arched her brow at him and shook her head, saying, “I’m no sympathizer. I’m a Templar. It happens to be a duty I take quite seriously.”

Sebastian snorted beside him, “A Templar, you say? Well, in that case I’m the High Demon and my friend here is the Princess of Orlais.” Sarcasm dripped from his thick accent. “Why would they permit a Templar to walk free among the mage rebellion?”

“You mean free like Carver walks free?” Margot replied with a smirk. The woman withdrew a small silver blade and held it in her mouth as she gracelessly crawled over to Sebastian. “I want you to see something,” she mumbled through her teeth when he began to back away. The alleged Templar bent down behind the prince, cutting free the ropes binding his hands before doing the same for Fenris. Without another word, she rose to her feet and exited the tent with an unspoken command for them to follow.

Sebastian felt infinitely wary and conveyed that with a furrow of his brow to Fenris, who in turned simply shrugged. This Margot intended to show them something. They weren’t going to know if it was good or bad until they saw it for themselves. Margot was also at this point the only person he’d seen in the last five days that wasn’t dead, undead, a blood mage, a devious prince, or his ex-lover’s murderously angry younger brother. Given his unknown surroundings and current company, he figured he may as well risk his chances with this new woman.

His knees popped and creaked as he rose to his feet to exit the tent. While a painful sensation, it was still a welcome one cutting through his limbs, stiff from sitting still too long. Even hyper-focusing his will, he couldn’t prevent his legs from shaking. He had after all been lying prone for the better part of two days, he did not envy Sebastian’s winces when the prince rose to his feet as well. It was dusk or dawn, though the positioning of the sun in the sky indicated the former. They followed the woman who led them from the rather isolated prisoner tent and toward the greater camp. They walked past two sentries, likely guarding Fenris and Sebastian, who noted their escort and allowed them through with unrestrainedly hostile looks before turning and falling in behind them.

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see but was more than a little shocked at the sight presented before him. Children too young to have manifested magic were playing while the adults around them looked worried and scared. There were people who were clearly sick. A small group of men and women stood guard around the perimeter wielding staves and swords, anxiously watching for danger. There were fewer than twenty that he could immediately identify as mages. The rest of them, he reasoned, were either family, sympathizers, or- and he suspected this to be the most likely- they were Templars as well.

He’d heard rumors of Templars deserting to join this side of the war- it had been what inspired him to contact Marian in the first place- but had never thought there could be even an ounce of organization to it. He’d already decided most of those who’d defected were manipulated into doing so with blood magic and predicted rampant demons, unrepentant abominations, and dirt stained scarlet with the blood sacrifices necessary to keep a group of devout Templar brothers under sustained control.

The presence of Carver, the introduction of this strange woman Margot, and his reunion with Marian sent that belief flying. Those wearing the tattered Chantry armor maintained an aura of careful control and vigilance. Even so, he did not for even a moment entertain the idea of letting his guard down. He was already disarmed, hungry, on foreign terrain, and at a severe disadvantage overall but he still had the lyrium. If push came to shove, he could power through many of these people and possibly make an escape with Sebastian before he took too much damage.

Margot’s voice abruptly interrupted his reverie. “These people aren’t hardened criminals,” she said gravely to Sebastian. “They are as much Anders’ victims as the people who died in the Kirkwall Chantry. I only wish the bastard were alive to see the faces of all the people he slaughtered.”

“I imagine you’ll have quite the fight on your hands should you even try to reinstate the Circles,” Fenris huffed. Even if things were vastly different from his predictions, that did not mean he was prepared to abandon his convictions. This was a garden filled with wasps and while they weren’t riled now, the consequences would be catastrophic once someone took a swing at the nest.

She glared daggers at the elf, turning her body to face him fully. “These mages didn’t rebel because they wanted to practice blood magic, Fenris. They rebelled because they wanted better lives and they ran when the order went out to cull them. Most of these people want to go back. Some of them never wanted to leave.”

Before he could assess the imminent threat, stomping boots sounded behind them, “What the Blight do you think you’re doing?” Carver’s voice barked as he stalked over to them, nearly shaking with rage.

Margot shrugged and replied, “I wanted to see what the fuss was all about. I’ll admit the elf is a bit pissy but I’m not exactly shaking in my boots here, Carver.” Her posture was defiant and she crossed her arms in a stubborn manner that all but invited Carver to give his opinion on her actions.

Carver hatefully snarled, “We are still deciding what to do with them!”

Margot snapped her reply, “And _I_ am doing the same with them that we do with any new people who come into our camp. Why won’t you just admit that you’re pissed off because they hurt your sister and you can’t justify attacking them?”

“Oh, I can justify attacking them,” Carver sneered, withdrawing a small blade from his pocket as he considered Margot’s position.

“Fine,” Margot replied and removed herself from between Carver and the two interlopers. “If you think they’re that dangerous then do it. I trust your judgment.”

Fenris kept the lyrium in check as Carver withdrew his knife once more from his belt and contemplated it for a moment. Then he ducked his head down in an angry quake, but maintained his furious stillness when he clearly desired malice. It was obvious the boy was working through his violent urges when a familiar voice cut through the scene once more and sank Carver’s shoulders back into an unwilling calm…

“Carver, you can’t…” the soft, elven voice pleaded. “Most of the people here would consider my past to be far more grievous than siding with the Templars in Kirkwall.”

He growled in her direction and snarled, “You are different!”

“It is _not_ different, ma vhenan…” Merrill asserted softly. With a duck of her head, she approached Carver and hesitantly placed her hand on his neck. “You know she wouldn’t want this,” she murmured before rising to her toes and pressing her lips to his cheek.

“Merrill,” Carver whispered before he twisted his head into Merrill’s kiss for a brief moment. She pulled away with a gentle smile, bowing her head against Carver’s neck in a sort of strange affection. Carver sheathed his knife with a hateful look directed at Fenris, which Fenris returned in kind.

“A Templar and a blood mage?” Fenris spat at Carver, unable to even comprehend the hypocrisy he was witnessing. Was Carver so besotted he failed to see the clear and present threat a blood mage openly flaunting her defilement in the camp posed? He took two long strides forward and poked his index finger in front of Carver’s idiot face and shouted, “Are you such a fool? What manner of rebellion do you think you are running here?”

“She’s not a blood mage,” the man snarled softly back, swatting the elf’s hand away and giving him a hard shove.

Fenris stumbled three full steps before he regained his composure and began stalking forward again. Margot and the two guards that escorted them here ducked into battle stances before a hand seized his forearm. Anyone else could have looked forward to a fist through their chest for such a gesture but, fortunately, he didn’t even have to look back to know the offending grip was Sebastian’s. With a deep breath, stopped in his tracks and lowered his hands. As much as he’d love to strike the idiot boy down, fighting Carver Hawke in the middle of his own camp was unbelievably reckless.

Before he could formulate a proper retort, Merrill interrupted. “I’ve given it up,” she said, turning to face Fenris directly. She met his glare evenly, candidly as she always had. Merrill was a good many things… but she, like Carver, had never been a particularly good liar. Regardless of her proclivity for the dark arts, she at the very least seemed to consider herself to be done with it.

He knew better than she that abstinence was not so simple. His head shook sadly at her ignorance and he said, “I’ll believe it when I see it. A blood mage cannot resist temptation in a fight.”

“I know, I’ve… I’ve given it all up,” she uttered with a tone that deeply betrayed her selected path; that she wanted to be fighting with the rest of them but at the very least seemed to understand that was a road skirting temptation and she shouldn’t foolishly walk upon it. “I’d hardly be much of a help. I do what I can around the camp; you know, cooking, telling stories to the children. And Hawke’s also helping me learn some healing, so there’s that, too.” Fenris caught the cadence of her speech increasing as well as the tone and recognized the other elf working herself up into a flurry of completely daunted speech that could feasibly continue until she collapsed from lack of air, something which he’d seen only once. “I can sew a little bit, nothing too difficult but I can mend socks and whatnot… not that I have a particular use for socks. I tried a pair once but I kept slipping over the floor…”

Fenris knew this unanswered dialogue would continue indefinitely as the elf continued to fluster herself further, so he cut her off with a, “That’s fine, I suppose,” which saw the errant former Knight-Captain rewarded with a grateful nod from none other than Carver, strange as that seemed.

The younger Templar wrapped his arms around Merrill, pulling her back into his embrace. The proximity seemed to calm her and her shoulders unwound from the tenseness they’d been brought to. “I could not have done it alone,” she told them simply before pulling away from the human, not aggressively but delivering a look back as if to reaffirm that she could stand on her own.

“I am done with it,” she affirmed in an almost determined voice. “They insisted that I had no place here unless I made one for myself. They would have permitted me to run. I am not here for them, but for myself.”

It was at the very least a highly interesting development. Merrill’s confession told him several things she’d not explicitly stated. Firstly, Carver was clearly in charge of the group at the moment and, though his affections for Merrill had been obvious and unrequited even in Kirkwall, he had finally secured a relationship with the whimsy elf. Secondly, blood magic was apparently forbidden here. That in itself was more than a small shock.

But the information that was by far the most valuable was that it appeared a majority of the rebellion camp was unfamiliar with her past. That was a weapon he could possibly use to divide the camp amongst itself. Carver and a selected group of Templars would surely stand in defense of Merrill but the rest… Maker, if he were coy and clever enough he could rip the rebellion apart at its very heart.

He could end this war. Once the base of this rebellion was compromised, each individual cell would be subsequently weakened- ready for occupation. The mages could be dragged back into the Circles and he’d be lauded as a hero. Oddly, the last part held absolutely no appeal for him- even went so far as to cancel out several immediate benefits he could foresee. Fenris would always be at least somewhat wanted in Tevinter and thus it behooved him to remain as anonymous and unsung as possible.

… and strangely, the potential destruction of the mage rebellion also failed to deliver the expected pangs of immense satisfaction.

That was strange. This was all was beyond strange.

Time would certainly see him through it… but a certain part of him wondered at the cost.

It was the part of him that kept him dreaming about Marian.

He found himself _immensely_ irritated with the plucky mage for that.

With Merrill standing aside, Carver drew his wary gaze to Sebastian, seeming unable to regard Fenris directly. It made sense- in Tevinter, Fenris would have been called a blood-enemy- someone who threatened a family member stood to destroy the family unit as a whole. As of this point, the ragtag Hawke clan consisted only of Marian and her brother. The war had inspired closeness between them previously unwitnessed in Kirkwall.

“I hated Anders,” Carver finally mumbled, “hated him from the first time I heard him spout his stupid words out of his stupid bloody mouth. I hate everything he stood for and I hate everything he did.”

The smile that cracked over Fenris’ face was genuine. There had been only two things that he and Carver had in common, a firm belief that big swords often communicated better than words and a mutual hatred of Anders. That composed pretty much every civilized conversation he’d ever had with the boy.

“But these people,” the boy continued and gestured futilely into the camp, “they are not Anders. He murdered these people like he murdered the people in Kirkwall’s Chantry.

“These people need protection. They succumb when the trials are too hard. They cave just like any other person would… they’re just better armed.” He swallowed hard, like the words were utterly painful to choke down before he continued, “Our job is to _protect_ them. From the world… from themselves… Our duty is to ensure that sort of desperation never hits them so hard.”

But the argument rang false. He knew of at least once case Carver couldn’t defend, so the elf growled, “And what of Orsino? I was under the impression the battle was practically won before he turned against your sister.”

The boy ducked his head both angrily and reverently. “I couldn’t say. I respected him. Respected him more than I respected even my own sister until the end. She held him in high regard… it must have been like the Corypheus fiasco all over again.

“I never asked her about it,” he uttered with the heaviness of guilt that Fenris himself recognized. “I never cared to know if the line she toed had shifted because of Father’s and Orsino’s indiscretions. That was her burden, although I now suspect it is mine as well.

“Not that we can even begin to deal with the Chantry crisis,” the unrepentant boy finished. “Anders is the bigger threat now.”

“Anders is an abomination your sister allowed to manifest into a psychotic maniac completely unchecked. You cannot deny her role in this,” Sebastian provided in the hatefully pragmatic manner he was predisposed to. Even while he vehemently fought for it, Fenris knew the prince’s position was far more conflicted.

Carver scowled angrily at the prince, “People can change their minds. My sister’s fault is that she didn’t change hers soon enough.”

“Your sister refused to recognize danger when it was staring her in the face,” Sebastian retorted.

Carver shot a withering and pointed glance to the prince and then the elf before he replied with a simple, “Clearly.” Silence hung between them for a long time before he spoke woodenly again, “Now that you know where we stand, I ask you- are you threats to us?”

“No,” Sebastian answered automatically.

Fenris’ answer was not so immediate, not for any sort of disinclination toward lying but because Carver’s eyes stated that the elf’s denial would be rejected. There was after all nearly a decade of evidence that indicated otherwise. So instead, he met Carver’s eyes and steadily answered, “Yes.”

Margot began to draw the sword at her hip but before Carver could reply, Merrill took a step forward and asked, “Would you fight the mages’ reintegration into the Chantry’s Circle?”

He bowed his head for a moment, considered his beliefs and replied, “No. Not if it were done safely.” Margot nodded her approval and sheathed her weapon. Merrill ducked her head and regarded Carver once more. His furious gaze betrayed his lover’s defiance. She’d prodded the elven Templar into correctly answering Carver’s query at the expense of her lover’s authority.

Fenris deeply hated being indebted to the potentially former blood mage but gave her a look of gratitude regardless- mostly because he rather liked being alive. He felt he was generally more effective that way and the concept of martyrdom was distinctly unappealing.

Silently, Merrill beckoned himself and Sebastian forward, which Carver hatefully accepted and led them. They moved through the camp until they encountered a campfire, more or less isolated from the greater camp, and were beckoned to sit around it.

Fenris seated himself in the small circle. The fire glowed benevolently in the center, leading him to believe some sort of ritual was likely to occur. Sebastian sat next to him in an act of solidarity. Then Carver, Margot, Merrill, the two guards who’d supervised their imprisonment, three mages, and another Templar seated themselves around the same fire.

Once the party seemed full, Carver stated simply, “I think we should dump them near Starkhaven and retreat before they can give chase.”

Margot spoke next, “They disagree on points but not on principle. We should see it out. They could be powerful allies against Anders.”

“I won’t go back to the way things were,” a mage uttered. “Point and principle are far beyond where we stand. They are with us or they are against us.”

“Anders is not our primary concern,” a man agreed though Fenris could not determine exactly who had said it.

Another snorted angrily, “He’ll kill us all if we don’t find a way to rally against him!”

“Awww, did I miss the sing-a-long? Come on, let’s all hold hands, sing a song, and talk about the power of love,” came a new voice calling from the edge of the wood. “The fact is, Hawke isn’t here and she’s the one who’s been wronged. We need to be thinking about what she’d want.”

Varric Tethras emerged and smiled easily to the crowd, “She usually gives the benefit of the doubt. I think she’d want you to do the same. The last thing she wants is a witch-hunt against any people who may have hurt her. Maker knows, half of Thedas would be marked for death if she did.”

“They tried to kill her,” Carver spat.

Varric replied easily, “Then let her judge them. Throwing these two morons back into the woods is cutting off your nose to spite your face.”

“It is cutting off _their_ noses!”

“And who gets hurt? It isn’t you. It’s her,” the dwarf rationalized as he seated himself, though the difference in his height, even seated, remained minimal. “She gets hurt. I get hurt! And, frankly, I didn’t just spend three weeks getting the shit beaten out of me by the Chantry’s Seeker to see you put my dashing good looks to waste!”

“They betrayed her.”

“Then it isn’t your call, Junior,” Varric grumbled. “She’ll make it when she comes back.”

Carver ducked his head and looked away… but Fenris saw his eyes dampen. Merrill cuddled up to him, snuggled closer so his face would be hidden against her neck. Something was wrong but he had no clue as to exactly what it was- could only recognize that it inspired a great anxiety in Marian’s brother.

“Leave us,” Carver snapped at the congregation before regarding Sebastian once more, “You and the elf can stay. If Varric and Merrill are willing to put their necks on the line for you than perhaps you aren’t as worthless as you appear.” Without further prompting, everyone barring Merrill, Varric, Fenris, and Sebastian rose to leave. It felt almost like old times.

Once the others had provided ample distance, Carver asked in a deceptively casual, singsong voice, “So how was Kirkwall?”

Varric ignored his tone and said, “I got dragged into your mother’s estate and was forced to answer a ridiculous number of questions. Don’t worry, they don’t know where your sister is.”

Carver dropped his head once more. The elf closed her eyes and stroked his hair, seeming entirely disinclined to offer any explanations. Soft, indefinable words were passed from her lips into his ear and they caused Carver’s shoulders to fall even farther into her. “What _do_ they know?” the younger Hawke finally asked, his words only slightly muffled against the palms of his hands.

Varric, noticing the awkwardness as well, answered, “That Meredith was defeated and your sister ran like the Blight was chasing her.”

“They don’t know about Tevinter?” Carver asked dumbly.

Varric cocked his head in confusion and asked, “She’s gone to Tevinter?”

Carver breathed a sigh of relief. He huffed several breaths against Merrill. “Good,” he finally replied. “At least they won’t start looking for her there. What do they know about Anders?”

“They just think your sister freed him,” Varric affirmed. “I didn’t feel any compulsion to tell them much more.”

“To think she let him go,” Sebastian whispered. “That she allowed him become this thing…”

Carver interrupted with a quick, “She let him go because killing Anders in front of the Chantry was only going to make him a martyr. She let him go because killing him was what he wanted.”

“Wait,” Varric interrupted. All eyes turned to the dwarf as an expression of dismay and shock fell over his broad face. He pushed on, rapidly asking, “She let him go, that’s all she ever told you? She’s never said anything else about it?”

“Yes, you took off and she took him away from camp and then she came back and told us she’d let him go.” Carver snapped, “Why?”

“That…” Varric’s voice carried over from the campfire before tapering off as though the storyteller was unsure exactly what to say. Fenris had only seen the dwarf so hesitant to talk once before on the night he burst into the elf’s dilapidated mansion and struggled to tell him that the matron Hawke had been murdered.

“That _what_?” Carver lunged slightly forward with his accusation.

“… that isn’t… _entirely_ true,” Varric muttered, bringing his thick fingers up to massage his temples. “I mean, it’s true in so much that she didn’t lie but she… she may have omitted a few details during the retelling.”

“Omitted what?” Carver asked impatiently. Varric continued in his silence, uncharacteristically at a loss for words, jaw opening and shutting a few times as he began to speak and then seemed to think better of it. “She omitted _what_ , Varric?” the younger Hawke repeated harshly.

Varric took a deep breath. Then he took several more as he carefully weighed his words. “When she said that she let Anders go, she didn’t exactly mean she took him into the woods and politely asked him to leave.”

Carver’s face went pale at the implications of Varric’s words but pushed on regardless. “Then what did she mean?”

Varric’s eyes, cold and tired, met with Sebastian’s and spoke the words Fenris already knew, “She took him into the woods and she killed him.”

“Are you certain,” Sebastian interrupted with a sudden desperation, like he wanted above all else for this to not be true, like he wanted an affirmation that he hadn’t thrown away six years of friendship in a fit of childish rage. “How do you know for certain?”

Varric laughed bitterly and shook his head, taking his attention from the prince and returning it to gaze at the fire. “I know,” he began before he stopped to take another deep breath, shutting his eyes to shutter back the unshed tears threatening to fall, “I know because I helped her bury him.”

* * *

_End of Chapter 9_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to my betas, Buried_Beneath and AmericanCorvus for proofreading this. Also to NoMadKa, for kicking my ass back into gear.
> 
> Another special thanks to ineffableigor and their tumblr account for the super-flattering and wonderful review. I hope I can live up to the recommendation!
> 
> And, as always, a massive thanks to everyone who reads and everyone who takes the time to review. You’re all awesome. Thank you so much for your collective patience while I recovered and put this together.


	10. The Price of Freedom

Nemesis  
Chapter 10- The Price of Freedom

“ _Well goody, goody for me- I was beginning to find Minrathous rather dull.”  
Marian Hawke_

She had just turned seven-years-old. Carver and Bethany were four and edging nearer to five with each passing day, clumsily mucking about while Mother attempted the unenviable task of purchasing vegetables from the local market whilst wrangling three children. Marian had never been partial to meat, consuming only enough of it to thrive and not raise the ire of her parents, but Mother knew her eldest well enough to keep a stock of fruits and vegetables on hand. Leandra respected her peculiarities to an extent, after all Father and Bethany didn’t much prefer meat either.

She remembered tipping her weight onto the tips of her toes before dropping her weight over onto the backs of them to entertain her siblings, extending her skinny limbs in a semblance of awkward grace for their amusement as she distracted them from the boredom of the weekly shopping excursion. ‘Excursion,’ she loved that word. It made the boredom of the task feel more like adventure.

In any case, it was a clumsy mimicry of the dancers she’d seen perform before, she knew, but her siblings were entranced with the sheer idea that she could do it. A grateful look from Mother was all the payment she needed for the discomfort as she tilted her free leg back into an inelegant and low arabesque. Bethany clapped with glee at her elder sister’s display. Carver vacillated between amusement and something else; and though Marian wasn’t sure what, it made her wonder if his digestive system was functioning properly.

The shopkeeper passed the package of fruit to Mother, apples and peaches as well as cherries that she’d bake into a wonderful pie- it was Saturday after all. The man’s next words nearly startled her into tipping over from her pose, “You should take her to Denerim, with some training she’d be a shoe-in for the royal dance troupe.”

The thought of it left her nearly breathless. A group of dancers from the Royal school had taken a small stage in the Chantry three weeks ago. Father had not attended, electing to stay instead with Bethany and Carver. Marian had clapped her hands, enchanted at the slow gracefulness that was displayed before her. Leandra… Leandra just looked on her daughter’s delight with a strange expression of hope and fear.

“Moving costs money and we don’t have a lot of it,” Leandra replied sadly to the grocer. Money, that was never the problem- the family was by no means wealthy but they’d always managed to survive just fine- it was that Denerim had a rather large Chantry and the Templar presence could see Father stolen away.

The man, Ira if she recalled correctly, pressed on, “That young and with training, she’d make three times what you make for your sewing- which is damn good by the way,” he added as almost an afterthought. He pressed a few extra peaches in with a sly wink to the pirouetting girl, neatly too ripe to sell but perfect for a snack. “She’s got talent. You’re wasting it here, Leandra.”

Mother sighed and clutched her bundle of groceries closer before she replied, “We’ve discussed it… but now isn’t the right time.”

“I used to work out of Denerim, Serah. The Royal Troupe only accepts them between 11 and fourteen unless there are extenuating circumstances. She’s, what, eight?”

“Seven,” Mother corrected. “Perhaps later.”

Mother gathered their purchases and began the trek from the city with her three somewhat unruly children in tow. An hour’s walk saw them returned home to the cottage on the hill but they remained outside. Carver had pulled Bethany against him and grasped her forearms to swing her recklessly in circles, her sister’s feet aloft from the ground and Carver laughing like a fool. Marian practiced the movements she’d seen the dancers perform with their strange shoes and calm, painted faces. Leandra grinned as she watched them, so enamored with her children that she bore no thought to what could lie within their home.

Perhaps Carver had dropped Bethany or perhaps she’d merely been thirsty… she wasn’t sure what had taken her into the house. But when she entered, she heard the hushed sound of speech. Secrecy was not lost on her. Just last week, Neville Deluna had asked to see her underclothes. After quickly confirming no adults were in sight she’d obliged him and lifted her skirt, more because she knew she shouldn’t do it than because she thought she should. She’d always been a bit of a cheeky monkey- it was that sort of impertinence that clearly followed her into adulthood.

She followed the sound of voices into their small kitchen. Two men sat there, silent and somber. Father was nowhere to be seen but had clearly been there- evidenced by the three sets of dishes and teacups resting on the table. Guests, then, but Father hadn’t mentioned company. In fact, the eldest Hawke seemed wholly inclined to function in solitude if his family wasn’t around. He had no personal friends of his own.

The first man noticed her and said something… but the words were nonsense to her ears. He was very old, much older than Papa. She wondered for a moment if the man was somehow touched, if in his advanced age his mind no longer fired properly. But the other man laughed, seeming to understand the gibberish. He looked back at her, eyes smiling. She knew danger, knew how to recognize the men that could steal Father away. This man was no Templar; he somehow seemed kind… safe.

“There you are,” the man exclaimed as he beckoned her closer. His accent was strange, the inflection of his tongue was deeply familiar though she couldn’t recognize it then. “You are Marian, correct?”

“I am,” she replied warily, shuffling her feet closer as the man smiled at her.

He swung his gaze to his companion. “Look at her, Seneca, she looks just like her Father,” the man beamed before focusing once more upon her. “Do you like sweets, little Marian?”

“I do,” she hesitantly answered, simultaneously recognizing this as one of the situations her parents warned her to avoid… but there was an unspoken promise of candy. Marian Hawke loved candy and she felt the blanket ‘Do not, under any circumstances, ever accept candy from strangers’ rule could be exempted… because they were in the safety of their home and, well, there was candy.

The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, confectionary orb. “Then here is a sweet for such a lovely sweet,” he said as he plunked it down into her hand, bringing his hand up to kindly touch her cheek.

She could smell sugar and cinnamon on her palm, sweet and spicy. She desperately wanted to eat it… but Father had not raised a fool. She tore her gaze from the treat said seriously, “You must promise it isn’t poison.”

“What?” A mask of utter bafflement fell over the man’s face as he questioned her.

She rolled her eyes and told him, “You’re a stranger.”

The man barked out another laugh and plucked the treat from her hand, dropping it into his mouth. “Of course a Harrow would doubt a gift. Here,” he reached into his pocket and pressed another into her empty palm. Instead of immediately releasing it, he clutched her hand tightly within his grip and uttered, “I solemnly promise that I will never hurt you.”

She scrutinized the treat in her hand, asking, “You promise?”

“I promise, Marian,” the man replied quietly. “You are protected. No one can hurt you.”

The grin on her face barely opened enough to pop the candy inside. It was ecstasy, her seven-year-old mind barely able to comprehend the unfamiliar flavors that danced over her tongue- strange spice and a cloying sugary goodness. “Careful,” the man warned with a friendly grin over his face. “Don’t choke.”

Then the deep sound of rage echoed through the room, “Release my daughter!”

“Marcus…” the man stumbled to his feet, backing away from her with his palms raised. “I gave her a candy,” he told her father softly. “It was just candy.”

But Father kept snarling, growling as he advanced and she recognized instantly that this man was not her father. He was some stranger she’d never met, wearing a strange suit made from the man she knew. “Get away from her!”

The other man, Seneca, rose to his feet to defend his friend and offered, “It was nothing, Harrow. She just came in…” Father silenced him with a quick punch and the old man dropped to the floor, clutching his bleeding jaw, before he could even finish speaking. Marian retreated into the corner, quickly spitting the sweet onto the floor, frantically wishing its evidence from her tongue, and watched as her father stalked quickly over to the man she’d accepted the candy from.

The first man grabbed Father’s angry fist before it could strike and shouted, “You are scaring her, Marcus!”

Father swung wild his eyes onto her- she’d never felt so small and alone and desperately wished the man hadn’t redirected Father’s attention back to her. Clearly, she’d done something wrong. The tears were already streaming down her face and had no plans of stopping anytime soon. This wasn’t Father… this wasn’t Papa… but she recognized him. Years ago, Mother had seen and fought him but the beast had only slumbered, hidden from view- and here today it had finally returned and revealed its name.

With a few angry huffs, this stranger in Father’s skin ducked down before her, clasping her hands in irons made from his hot, sweating ones. His eyes closed and he breathed, once, twice, three times, and then countless more until this Marcus melted away and Malcolm Hawke reemerged, opening his eyes to regard his daughter. “I forgot to tell your mother that we needed eggs,” he whispered gently. “Would you go to the market and get eggs with her?”

“I will,” but she couldn’t control the sobs that escaped her when she spoke and couldn’t cease even when the words stopped. Head bowed, she started to cry brokenly, unsure if she could ever stop.

Father brushed his unsteady hands over her hair and pulled her gaze back to his, impenetrable, warm, and sky blue as it had always been. “Everything is all right, Marian,” he whispered evenly. “There is no need for tears.”

“You’re angry,” she cried softly and buried her shameful face into her hands.

“I am not angry with you,” he replied patiently, touching her face softly to comfort her. “You have done nothing wrong. Get eggs with your mother, I want you to taste one of those revered Kirkwall quiches for breakfast tomorrow.”

With those words, he’d turned her gently toward the door and gently nudged her forward. When she reached the door, she took a quick look back. The two strangers had reseated themselves, one with a vicious bruise spreading over his cheek and the other with a sorrowful look in her direction before he focused on his teacup.

Without further thought she ran, feet thudding through the cottage until she reached the front door, flinging it open with reckless disregard for the age of the wooden frame of their home, and then the porch, before she retreated into the open yard. She wasn’t sure that she’d ever stop running until Mother swung her into her strong arms, catching her so abruptly in her full-fledged sprint that her feet flew toward the sky for a brief moment and Marian had thought briefly that the dirt itself had hurled her away or the itself sky had sucked her up.

Leandra captured her mid-flight and embraced her tightly. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” she asked worriedly.

Marian understood in that instant that Mother couldn’t encounter Marcus Harrow again, not after the last time. She’d nearly left the last time they’d met. Taking in a deep breath, the seven-year-old steadied her breath and said, “Father says we need eggs.”

Leandra answered with a sweet, placating smile, “I already bought eggs, dear.”

“Then we need more,” Marian replied dully.

Leandra jolted at her child’s tone and glared at the home that had inspired her eldest child into such a frantic retreat. “Marian…” she murmured playfully, as if trying to tease out whatever had troubled her daughter so.

“We need more,” she asserted again, using her skinny body to block her mother from entering the house. “Father says we need more.”

Leanda backed away in shock, giving a long look at the cottage and an even longer look at her daughter, noting the tears on her face and the flush on her cheeks. “Then we’ll get more,” she answered tersely before her tone softened almost infinitely, “Perhaps we can go look at that doll you’ve been eyeing as well.”

She’d wanted it since six months past Satinalia and had badgered Mother and Father for it ceaselessly. It had been named and as far Marian was concerned it already belonged to her. That her mother seemed prepared to unexpectedly cave into her wishes now confirmed everything she dreaded to know. Something was desperately wrong. Leandra ducked down before her daughter and clasped her small hands within her own, worn and tired from countless hours of sewing. “Just don’t flaunt it to the twins. We’ll tell them it’s because you’ve done so many chores,” she said with an overenthusiastic cheerfulness. “It can be our secret.”

This sort of secret was infinitely less fun than lifting her skirts for Neville. “I don’t want it,” she answered; and it was the truth. In a moment of mature clarity unknown to her at that point in her life, Marian just understood that owning the coveted doll would be a constant reminder of this day… and the manner that brought it so close to her grasp left her simply never wanting to look upon it again. “We just need the eggs.”

Leandra’s face fell into a scowl as she looked upon their home and she muttered, “Just the eggs then.”

Mother took them back to the market and purchased the eggs. Carver and Bethany on some level recognized the tension and remained blissfully silent even when she’d refused to perform for them once more. When they arrived back home, all their worldly possessions had been packed into rucksacks. Father waited alone on the front porch, the ramshackle pieces of their lives crammed away into so many bags. He looked up guiltily, first to herself and then to Mother.

Mother, who was always so gentle and kind, allowed her face to be warped into an expression of absolute fury and Father withered even further into himself.

They spent that night and the next four on a wagon heading elsewhere, neither Mother or Father seemed to know their final destination. They occupied an inn within the first week on the run somewhere around Highever. Hawke had waked in the night to the sound of her parents quarreling in the next room. They never fought. The twins slept peacefully, unknowing of the circumstances of their move beyond the obvious apostates-run-from-Templars variety. But Marian remained awake, not wanting to eavesdrop but having little choice as their rising voices carried through the thin walls of the inn.

“She needs to be in Denerim!” Mother said. “She could have a future there- a life, Malcolm. She’s talented and everyone thinks so!”

Father barked, “It’s suicide to live there!”

“You’d sacrifice her future for your own?” she snarled the question, compromising everything Father was in a single statement.

He was undeterred and replied in a sharp hiss, “She could be a mage!”

“She could not be one!” Mother retorted. “She could show magic up until she’s fifteen and the Academy won’t take her after fourteen. Would you deny her a future based on speculation? What sort of father are you?”

“One who wants to protect his children!”

“Your children? Or yourself?”

“I am protecting my children!”

“Then why is it your daughter is left protecting you?” Mother screeched in a voice completely unfamiliar with arguing. It was wry and terrible to hear such a tone coming from a woman so calm and collected. The unnatural cadence of Mother’s quiet soprano alone made Marian want to vomit into the nearest corner to purge the disquiet it caused. “You need to decide, Malcolm,” she declared in an icy threat. “You need to pick your family or pick your ghosts. There is no in between. Not anymore. I will not have you terrorizing our children! Either come clean or bury it! Bury it somewhere it will not hurt our babies.”

“It is buried, Leandra,” he stammered.

“Tell that to Marian! She won’t even look at you!”

“I… I will. Leandra, it’s buried. I told them, it’s buried. It’s over.”

“For your sake, Malcolm,” Mother whispered, “It better be.”

Her relationship was strained with Father for years after that. She found herself quite often doing the polar opposite of his wishes for no discernable reason at all. They moved into a cottage at the outskirts of Denerim and she was quickly accepted into a preparatory school where she excelled in dancing but floundered a bit in the etiquette training. Her preparation for the Troupe was fraught with difficulty as physical maturation packed extra weight onto her frame. Even at eleven, one of her instructors had commented that her rapidly developing breasts could be problematic for her future, but she continued her training undaunted.

It wasn’t until later that year… she’d fought with Father over some trivial thing and she’d lost her temper and inadvertently ignited a haystack. With a look of sick panic, Father gripped her close and smuggled her from the city under his cloak with her flaming fists scorching through his tunic and into his stomach. They fled that night. The scars from the prolonged exposure would remain with him for the rest of his life but he’d never begrudge the burns she’d caused. That was when she finally forgave him for the incident in West Hill. That had been the day she truly understood that some secrets were too dangerous to reveal- not the fun ones like lifting her shirts or letting an older student kiss her in an empty practice room… but the ones that revealed truths that no one would ever accept.

She was a mage and no one would ever accept her freedom.

Overnight, her priorities shifted. She still practiced dancing- alone when no one could see, in her room at night when no one else was awake, tipping onto her toes and remembering the way Devon’s hands smoothed over her hips before he pulled her into an empty classroom and kissed her for a solid ten minutes, pulling her hair from the bun she’d fastened it into and telling her how beautiful she was. Those memories preserved her for a little while before they stopped. Her studies under Father’s careful tutelage kept her safe and Bethany’s development turned her into a second tutor of sorts. Slowly, her winter dreams melted like snow from the summer and she accepted her life as it was. She was a mage and nothing would ever change that.

So she’d moved on, determined to make the most of her condition. If magic must be her curse than she would make it into a blessing. If the world hated her than she’d prove them wrong with every pulse through her neck and each beat of her heart. Because Marian Hawke was not a victim of circumstance- she was a soaring bird of prey, beholden only to herself and the other Hawkes- and no one should ever have need to cage her.

But today, here in the thrice-hated Tevinter Imperium, she finally recognized the man who had given her a simple, traumatizing piece of candy over two decades ago, truly saw the dark cloaked messenger who had sworn her protection, and was finally able to see him as more than a fever dream of a terrified little girl. The Black Divine- standing before her with his arms slightly open, his arms akimbo to open himself to attack… the same man who opened his palm so many years ago to reveal a single cinnamon candy outstretched in his weathered hand- she could even remember the taste.

“Who are you?” she whispered finally, unable to stop her jaw from quivering as she regarded the man before her. A moment of concentration saw her heartbeat slow as her mind slowly returned into blissful calm. “How do you know us?”

Aurelius bowed his head and answered, “Your father, Marcus, and I pledged into the Chantry together in our youths.” Grasping the Agreggio again, he busied himself with refilling their goblets.

Hawke was grateful and downed a heavy gulp, uncaring that she’d just knocked back one of the finest wines in Thedas like it was the cheapest swill at the Hanged Man. Something about this situation made her want to drink, it was not necessarily an exclusive event in the last year. “My father was a member of the Black Chantry?”

He nodded and downed his cup in a similar fashion before heavily pouring a refill for them both. “And likely raised you in it as well.”

“My father never spoke a word of the Black Chant to us,” she remarked in a sort of matter-of-fact protest. “We were raised in the White Chantry.”

Aurelius shrugged casually and replied, “If you’re a devout Andrastian, how do you justify living outside the Circle’s captivity?”

The justification had been laid out for her in her father’s deep baritone, so sure and confident that she never even thought to question from whence it came. She swallowed heavily, feeling slightly ill as she answered, “If we live our lives according to the Maker, then men cannot not cage us.”

Aurelius straightened himself, lengthening and stretching the vertebrae and muscle until he appeared every bit as imposing as the statues erected over the walls of the Spire. If he’d seemed tall in spite of his stature before, the difference between his actual height and his presence appeared almost infinite now. “And a mage’s first duty is not to men but to the Maker,” he added kindly. “And that being an apostate is not a mortal crime if you conduct yourself accordingly?”

Everything she’d ever known screamed for her to contradict him but she felt just as powerless to defy him because he spoke the truth. So she finally whispered,”… dammit.”

A quirk of a smile graced his lips and he nodded sagely to confirm what she knew. Father had passed on some knowledge Black Chant- he’d just never called it that- and the theology she’d grown up with was likely some hybridized bastardization of the two. The way he’d explained his theology, justified his existence as an unapologetic apostate, had just _made sense_ in a way she’d never thought to question. Faint amusement tickled her mind in the thought that if Sebastian hadn’t burst into flames the first time he spoke to her, he likely would now if only in unholy indignation at her continued and now undeniably blasphemous existence.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Aurelius soft tenor, “Is it just you or are Carver and Bethany mages as well?”

Bethany, the sheer thought of her little sister brought the same heavy sigh it usually did. “Bethany was one, she died during our escape from Lothering.”

His next few words were Arcanum but were delivered with the steady, methodical cadence she recognized as prayer. With a quick bow of his head he intoned, “My condolences for your suffering.”

Even as heartfelt as the sentiment had been, she still wanted to snap that he knew nothing of her suffering but was stilled because Aurelius never claimed to know such things. So she bit her tongue. It was her burden, she knew, and not his- even if he’d just thrown everything she’d ever known and loved into chaos, even if it toppled the world onto its ear, even if he’d just tainted her memories of Father with the unequivocal knowledge that he was practically a stranger to her.

_Warriors suffer the burdens of battle._

She didn’t care to think about where that voice came from.

“Carver is a Templar,” she said instead and regarded the floor. “We’ve been shaping the rebellion together.”

He nodded sagely, moving to seat himself on a small bench near her. “It is good to try and achieve balance. The lack of such is something the Imperium shares in common with the South- we’ve just swung in the opposite direction, I fear.” Sighing heavily, he finished the last of his wine and focused his old eyes over her. “So little Marian, why don’t you tell me what brings you to Tevinter.”

Before she could answer the question, a Templar burst in. The man spoke rapidly with Aurelius in their native tongue before he nodded once at her and then subsequently retreated. When Fenris had spoken Arcanum around her, she’d found it charming but after hearing these foreign tongues bat it about so carelessly the trill had lost it’s allure and she didn’t care to ever find it again. The endless frustration of being unable to understand a majority of conversations happening around her had effectively stomped out the thrill and left only the dark mystery of it.

“You have a visitor,” the Divine softly explained before gently taking her goblet and settling it on his desk and guiding her to the door that would take her from the Spire and back down into to Imperial Chantry. “He seems to be quite urgent. We should address it.”

Before the obvious question of who in Minrathous knew to find her here could emerge from her lips, Aurelius ushered her down the daunting spiral staircase, the elderly man conveying somehow that this was important despite her having no idea what circumstances drew the high priest from his post in the majestic Spire. Tobias accompanied them, the priest so unnaturally quiet she’d forgotten his presence entirely until he fell in line behind them.

Four Templars stood rigidly around a dark-haired elf. Her unspoken question answered itself in the form of an extremely agitated Lothri bouncing from foot to foot as he struggled to retain the proper decorum for a place of worship.

Upon seeing her, however, that changed dramatically. The elf bounded over to her, gesticulating wildly and panting, “Varania! They come for her at the brothel! You help her!”

Aurelius and Tobias peeled away from her to allow her to deal with the overexcited prostitute. “Lothri,” she swallowed hard as she acknowledged him, “it’s hardly my business what she does now. You saw what she did.”

Eyes almost manically wide, he shook his head furiously. “They hurt her, Marian. You are to helping her!”

“She sent them to kill me, Lothri,” she snapped, not even attempting to disguise her immense irritation. Her inner reserves of patience were thin already in regards to Varania and they were rapidly depleting with each and every word the elf uttered. There was absolutely no desire in even the deepest reaches of her mind to assist Varania after she’d sold out both her own brother and then Hawke. If the slavers wanted her then that bitch could fend for herself.

Lothri grasped her hands, his were sweating and hot- nerves, she supposed- and he pleaded, “Varania is my friend.”

“I’m sorry, Lothri, but my answer is no.” She wasn’t even the slightest bit sorry but felt the artifice of apology was necessary to placate him.

Silence roared through the Black Chantry and Hawke was content to let it scream. Even if she could find words that could comfort him, she knew she couldn’t speak them in a language he’d understand. But guilt began to twinge hard at the edge of her mind; she attempted to crush it down but could not shake the niggling notion that perhaps this was a path she’d be better for not treading upon. Varania was the master of her own fate and she’d invited the slavers to come take their vengeance on Hawke. If their positions were reversed again, she seriously doubted the elf would take up arms for her. So why should she take up arms for her? Even if she was hurt, dying somewhere in this rotten shithole of a city… alone… frightened…

_Do not let her mistakes change who you are._

She considered the thought further and felt her conviction wither into the suddenly hollow shell where her moral compass usually resided. Lothri dropped her hands and turned away, shoulders shaking as he tried to collect himself for a moment. Before she could think to say anything at all, the elf spun on his heel and grabbed her by the front of her tunic. Strength she hadn’t expected from him had her hauled up on the tips of her toes. Even though the sudden aggression unnerved her, she held up her hand to keep the Templars from unsheathing their weapons against Lothri. He deserved better than that from her- she suspected the gentle elf deserved a lot better than whatever hand life had callously dealt him.

“You owe me, Marian,” he growled before releasing her back to the ground and shoving her. The force of the push sent her against the heavy door, which did nothing to cushion the impact.

She bowed her head best as she could under the undeniable accusation he’d made. The elf was right. She did owe him and a single debt unpaid could leave the scales tipped out of her favor- she’d already failed so many tasks she couldn’t let this simple one slide if there was even a chance. And for all her treachery, Varania did not deserve the massacre the slavers had in store for her. Hoppers hummed where he lay against her chest, remembering with her that same, choking fear she felt every time she thought about Wycome, remembered that black, sinking feeling when she realized that no help was coming, so vividly recalled that unending nighttime of blood-soaked terror where even the sheer _hope_ of morning’s light failed to find her.

Vera, Greyson, Jacob, Dax, Delia- sweet, innocent, dead Delia, her empty gaze vacantly looking skyward because there was nothing left on the earth for her. And Lydia… oh, Lydia… was Hawke’s freedom worth the terrible price Lydia had paid?

The world itself existed as two sides of a sovereign- she knew this, had seen firsthand the skyscape of glorious and unending wonder as well as an infinite night that hatefully consumed all that defied its vast, cold emptiness. She’d stumbled through some places where mortals dare not tread, both before the Fade and beyond it. Those horrors drove her to claim the Arishok’s throat and to take possession of a powerless slave-girl and liberate her, to claw her way out of poverty and still fight for the countless disenfranchised by battling bandits, slavers, scoundrels, and blood mages alike- because she’d realized long ago sometimes a flickering candle was all the light she needed to stave off the darkness, because Marian Hawke believed more than anything in the power of hope and the hopes of something better…

… and she remembered the despair she’d felt when Gerard Maison brutally stripped it away from her during those terrible bloody days in Wycome.

She shook her head once, twice to clear it from the tremors memory provoked, steeling herself as she pulled the staff from her back and wielded it like that the Champion fate and Meredith had proclaimed her. If Varania was in danger… then Hawke was going to forget the woman’s treachery and take up arms for her- if only to spare her the hopeless dread Hawke had endured and survived through… whatever it was that had saved her and destroyed Lydia. It was the delicate balance of battle, debt, forgiveness, and blood… and she couldn’t logically tell them apart anymore; just trusted instinct to keep her throat from being slit and prayed her morality could keep up as she kept charging forward- because if she looked back, she could still see the woman she’d been before this bloody war erupted, could see the conviction and strength she steadily reclaimed from the blows that knocked her down.

“Take me to her,” she whispered finally.

Aurelius began speaking rapidly in Arcanum to Lothri, who shook his head and argued emphatically back. With the elf’s dedication to his faith, this sort of defiance in the face of the Chantry’s leader was extremely unnerving. After several back-and-forths between the men, Lothri seemed to back down and the Imperial Divine faced her.

“Lothri will remain here,” he explained quickly before swinging his attention to the priest. “Tobias, escort Marian to Varania’s home. Avoid the Guard and any open conflict. Please do everything in your power to return them here safely.”

“Right,” Tobias answered evenly before extending a graceful arm toward the exit, silently inviting her to run alongside as they raced toward Varania’s home with little concern for the shadows looming in the streets, though she saw malicious eyes notice her and noticed them in kind.

The priest sprinted with an unusual singularity, nearly disturbing to some degree, and had her wondering if any thought existed in the man’s mind beyond putting one foot before the other. She was barely winded when they skittered to a stop before a hovel in the undercity. Candlelight glowed through the windows, only slightly dampened by ratty curtains. There was no echo of movement to be seen or heard.

The cracked door was slightly ajar, a cloying invitation to visit inside. Dread’s stone weight settled into her chest as she crept forward and pushed the door open, the creak of the hinges screeching their protest as she stole within with heavy trepidation. There were no sounds of the attack Lothri had warned them of. Perhaps, she hoped futilely, they beat the slavers here. But it was quiet, far too horribly quiet for a home with candles lit, and when she entered the kitchen, Hawke realized why with a sickened twist of her stomach.

There on the ramshackle table lay Varania- bound, naked, and unnaturally still save for the ragged, too-shallow heaving of her chest.

She rushed over, summoning her magic to try and heal her physical wounds as the elf strangled breath into her lungs in wet, rattling half-gasps. The wounds were too deep, too poisoned, she knew after only a few minutes, but she tried anyway, cursing as the closed wounds continued bleeding, spreading an ill purple beneath Varania’s skin. Magebane… they’d used the same weapons on her that they’d intended to use on Hawke. The elf had been like this a while, Hawke realized, unable to move while the poison coursed deeper into her system.

Realistically, Varania was already dead- had already died at least an hour ago- her physical body just hadn’t yet conceded its defeat. Regardless of that fact, Hawke furiously continued to work, fatigue setting in quickly as she futilely tried to expel the poison from the elf’s already debilitated system. As she followed a long wound slicing up the elf’s shoulder, the mage dimly noticed no scars adorning Varania’s forearms.

Her brow furrowed as she suddenly realized what that meant, realized this afternoon had been the elf’s first act of blood magic. She paused in her work. That was entirely unexpected. It also explained why she’d been able to throw off Varania’s influence so easily. Hawke worriedly thought back to her previous encounter with the elf in Kirkwall. Varania hadn’t raised a hand in her own defense nor a knife to her wrists in the face of her own execution at the lyrium-lined hands of her betrayed brother.

So why had she done it today?

Tobias disrupted her thoughts with a murmured, “It is too late, Hawke.”

Any reply was interrupted by Varania, brought back into waking from Hawke’s dogged attention. “Hawke,” she stuttered as she tried to move her hands down to cover herself, whimpering pathetically when the ties on her wrists prevented her unconscious attempt at modesty. “Hawke, what…”

She leaned close and cupped Varania’s face within her hands- focusing the dying woman’s attention onto herself rather than to her injuries- and cutting the elf off quickly with a terse and worried, “Save your strength, Varania. These wounds are serious.”

Varania’s eyes clouded over as she shook her head tiredly between Hawke’s palms. “Too late for me. Take… to Leto…” she rasped, blood sputtering from her mouth as she coughed. “Please…”

“Take Fenris what?” Hawke asked calmly, hoping the evenness of her voice could provide the dying woman with even a modicum of comfort. “Do you have something of his?”

“Please… take him… he’s…” Varania coughed again, a thick clot of blood and gore landing on Hawke’s cheek and sliding down to splatter back onto the elf’s chin. “Please… Leto…” and then she uttered another series of syllables, meaningless to the healer, before she went still, her eyes unfocused as they gazed at the cracking ceiling.

Dead- yet another casualty claimed by mere association. Even knowing Varania had betrayed her didn’t do much to ease the hurt. Hawke had begged Fenris to spare his sister and now she laid cold and still- her death the direct result of Hawke’s infernal interference.

“What was the last thing she said?” Hawke asked quietly as she moved her hand over Varania’s chin to close the elf’s eyes. Her hands unconsciously smoothed her hair, sticky from blood and sweat, away from her face and Hawke contemplated the elf as she’d examine a strange, bizarre animal- like a sleeping tiger that would certainly lunge for her throat upon waking. Now that tiger lay dead and would never snap her teeth again.

“It was not Arcanum,” Tobias answered blankly from behind her. “Perhaps it was Dalish.”

She tore her eyes away from Varania before her eyes darted around the kitchen and she saw past the blood and truly examined her surroundings. This house was made of centuries old wood, musty, damp, and rotting. The dishes by the sink were cracked and chipped- even Gamlen at his lowest had nicer things- but the place was clean without a speck of dust or dirt to be found. The various mice and vermin that likely prowled about at night certainly left hungry. The elf clearly took great care of the place but it was strange that she lived in the poverty of the undercity when she’d be welcomed into the slightly better poverty of the alienage.

Still, it made no sense. Varania was a beautiful woman and her appearance at the brothel convinced Hawke that she was one of the more sought after whores. Prostitutes that worked in the safety and luxury of a whorehouse were generally pretty well to do- perhaps not wealthy but at least comfortable. The elf _had_ to make at least somewhat decent coin but there was absolutely no evidence of that here. Curious, she opened the pantry and found it empty save for a jar of honey, a loaf of teeth-shattering bread, three oranges, and a few strips of a mysterious dried meat that Hawke didn’t care to speculate much on.

“Hawke, the Guard may arrive soon. We should depart.”

She shook her head and looked back at the enigmatic elf, expired on the ragtag kitchen table, eyes closed against the blood-spattered tableau that witnessed her end. “We need to find whatever it was she wanted me to take first.”

Without another word, Hawke tore from the kitchen and began furiously searching her home for whatever it was the elf had wanted her to take to Fenris. Her meager jewelry collection, nearly worthless trinkets and baubles, was pocketed; perhaps something in it was a family heirloom. There was simply no way to tell. Varania had begged Hawke to take something to her brother and she had no clue what that item may be- and a very limited time to find it before the Guard arrived to the murder scene.

There was nothing of substantial value downstairs- a meager savings of a few gold coins, a few carefully cleaned dishes that looked to be second or third-hand but ill-cared for so unlikely an heirloom. Hurrying up the creaking staircase, she found at the top a single bedroom. Upon entering Varania’s quarters, the first thing she noticed was a small locked trunk resting in the corner. Tobias set upon it immediately and without prompting, seeming to silently understand it likely held the valuables she was searching for. While he worked, she upended drawers onto her bed, frantically scrambling through Varania’s possessions. Guards would come. The slavers could return.

She found underclothes, nightshirts, a few tomes on magic; she flipped through the pages, focusing on anything that could be hiding within as a bookmark and finding nothing. Letters, dozens of letters that she immediately pocketed despite being unable to read them, lotions, quills, a few vials of common tinctures, a figurine of a mouse. She was tucking the mouse away when it slipped and hit the floor, breaking at the seam along its side. Within was a ring set with a single green stone, too large to fit Varania’s or even Hawke’s own hand. Did this belong to Fenris? Could it be his father’s?

A frustrated sigh escaped her as she scowled and stole that item as well. There was no way to tell what would be important to Fenris and what would not. Whoever said that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure clearly never played the intermediary between the two.

Tobias gave a quiet whistle to indicate the chest was unlocked and she began tearing through it, tossing out dresses and books, letters, letters, letters, and a larger quantity of gold coins until she found it, set carefully at the very bottom- a set of armor, a long, fortified cloak and more buckles than she could count- the smell, woodsy with the familiar twang of lyrium and sweat she recognized as belonging to Fenris, which she breathed in deeply until the scent nearly left her heady. It was heavily enchanted, to say the least, likely a suit Danarius had designed for Fenris to attend formal gatherings.

Pulling it out, she examined it anew and marveled at the sheer number of buckles. It put her slavers’ garb to shame. Shuffling through, she could not find a tunic meant to be worn beneath. She distantly recalled Isabela teasing Fenris about being oiled and glistening in Danarius’ presence and the sick thought that perhaps this armor was meant to be worn without one, with the buckles and leather lying directly over his skin in some bizarre fetishistic display.

Danarius’ death had been far too merciful, she thought not for the first time.

And beneath- a collar, with miniscule enchanted runes peppering every inch, waiting to be activated- healing runes meant to cause mental haziness and physical fortification, lightning and entropic runes meant to inspire inexplicable pain and horrors, and multiple blood runes she imagined would have keyed their trigger to a particular person. Given the complexity of the dark magic she sensed emanating from it, she had no doubt to whom that had belonged and the name of the disgusting magister who had forced him to wear it.

This must be it, she realized. Varania’s last wish had been that Hawke take Fenris’ armor and destroy this hated symbol of ownership. Tobias took the armor from her, packing it carefully away for their imminent departure, commenting only, “This armor is exquisitely crafted. Whoever commissioned it must have paid a fortune.”

“Not nearly the price paid by the man who wore it,” Hawke added darkly. Tobias offered no response. “We should go. We’re done here,” she finished, pockets heavy with the elf’s meager belongings and feeling every bit a grave robber.

The armor bulged against Tobias’ back as she made for the stairs. She was loath to deny a dying woman’s final request but how the Void was she supposed to return any of this to him? Maison had destroyed Cain Bannon’s ring when he’d burned her things, so she wasn’t fully confident that she was entirely suitable to return another’s lost items. Perhaps she could find someone to deliver it for her. If she returned by boat, the nearest port to Starkhaven would certainly…

A soft clatter sounded, drawing her attention away from her thoughts. Tobias raised his fists loosely and gestured once toward the closet. Someone was hiding in there. A slaver, she realized, who’d been left to ransack the house and startled into hiding when she arrived.

Creeping forward, she edged toward the closet, quieting her footsteps best she could as another rustle sounded along with a soft, higher pitched sound. A woman- and that infuriated her even further… that a woman could have watched those beasts savage the elf lying dead beneath her feet and stayed behind to scavenge the house.

She ceased hiding her movements and stomped forward, flinging the closet door open and demanding, “Show yourself!”

But when she peered into the darkness, she wished for a single moment against every fiber of her being that screamed otherwise, that she’d not investigated the noise. Because what stared back was a hauntingly familiar green and it meant that her life had once again uncontrollably flung into a new direction. It wasn’t the ring or the armor or the collar Varania had begged Hawke to take to Fenris…

It was her son.

Varania’s baffling betrayal of her brother made sense now in a heart wrenching way it never had before. The child was probably only three years of age, likely an infant when the elf made the long journey to Kirkwall with the wretch who’d failed in his attempt to recapture his fleeing property. Varania had accepted Danarius’ offer and assisted the slavers searching for Hawke in hopes of securing a better future for her child, and she’d had to relinquish that task to a woman she’d freshly betrayed. Maker, had she ever known anything other than tragedy and the sick twist of fate?

The elf cowered in the closet, green eyes peering out at her fearfully as he hid behind scanty robes, lingerie, and several boxes. She heard a sniffle, a whimper, and her heart broke just a little as she realized what she had to do.

She crouched down and extended her hand, beckoning softly, “You need to come with me, sweetheart. We need to get out of here.”

He babbled something to her but even through his thick juvenile affectation, she recognized it as Arcanum. She cursed mentally, of course the child wouldn’t speak Common- he hadn’t even mastered his native tongue yet. Tobias supplied a quick translation, “He wants to stay with his mother.” When she made no move to rise from the floor, he added, “Hawke, you have no legal right to keep him, we cannot bring him with us.”

“And what will happen to him? His only living relative is an escaped slave living in the Free Marches. Fenris can’t exactly come claim him.”

Tobias with his infuriating poker face simply asked, “An escaped slave? Please elaborate.”

She sighed, feeling wearier with each passing second, and quickly explained, “He was experimented on by a magister- implanted with lyrium. He used the boon he won in a competition for it to free his family.”

“She was freed by…” Tobias paused as if considering his words before continuing, tilting his head slightly as he thought. “If he escaped then your friend reneged on a life-debt, Hawke. I do not think you understand exactly what that means.”

Keeping her eyes on the boy meant she could not roll her eyes as much as she desperately wanted to. “He was already a slave,” she expounded minimally, “he simply used the boon to free his family.”

The apathetic voice responded with a bored-sounding, “If he won the boon, then your friend broke the terms of the contract when he ran- only death can legally break the bond. The boon would have been legally nullified. His sister would have been bound back into slavery.”

“But Fenris… he said that she was a tailor,” she stuttered as the horror of his monotone words settled over her and ripped her gaze away from the cowering child to regard the priest directly. “They’d been writing for months.”

“She may have been,” Tobias shrugged as if to agree that was a distinct possibility. “This magister may have waited to enforce the repealing.”

She didn’t have to ask why… not with the child huddled in the closet, crying softly at watching her anxiously. Danarius had waited until Varania had something she could not bear to lose. It had been why she’d resorted to blood magic today and not before. She’d said it herself, hadn’t she?

“My brother surrendered his life for my family…” her voice replayed in her mind; and when Fenris decided to take it back, her freedom was the forfeit. Hawke suddenly wished Dararius’ death had been much slower and much, much more painful- something with needles and sharp wire… something like Maison, though she knew Maison would have never taken Danarius, the corrupt magister had nothing the mad Templar wanted.

“So she was in the brothel…” she mumbled before she trailed off, unable to finished vocalizing her turbulent thoughts.

“Hiding,” Tobias finished succinctly. “I have heard of her, the Brothers would sometimes come to conduct services with her. The prostitute you came to the Chantry with arranged it, told them she was a shut-in. This makes more sense.”

“So what will happen to him?” she asked dumbly as she gestured back to the cowering boy, her mouth going unusually dry.

“Until this becomes known, the Guard will turn him over to the alienage orphanage. Then he will likely end up a slave to remunerate his uncle’s debt.”

She rose to her feet, outraged that a priest could speak about this so dispassionately and spat, “But it isn’t his debt to pay!”

“No, but his uncle’s boon paid for his mother’s release. When your friend broke his bond, the boon would have been retracted,” he explained again as though this was the easiest and most obvious concept in the world. “Unless Danarius declared his wishes otherwise, possession of them would have been folded into his estate. She and all her offspring would legally be his property.”

Something clicked in her mind when he spoke, leaving her to wonder exactly what it was that triggered it until her train of thought was interrupted by an exceptionally loud sniffle from the elf. She ignored Tobias once more and returned to the floor on her knees to again establish eye-contact with the child, ducking forward to lean on one hand as she extended her arm further toward him. “Your mother is gone. It isn’t safe here. You need to come with me,” she whispered gently, daring to inch slowly nearer the closet.

Tobias dutifully translated and fat tears began streaming down the child’s face as he choked on his anguish. Without a second thought, she pushed forward and entered the elf’s unsafe haven and embraced him; he struggled for only a moment before caving into her arms, howling his grief against Hawke’s chest as he cried with wretched childish abandon, clutching at her breast as he sobbed uncontrollably. She stroked his dark hair and whispered soft reassurances into his pointed ears that she hoped would register at least in tone to the boy she could not hope to communicate with directly.

Tobias made no attempt to translate, understanding somehow that the words she offered were essentially insignificant- it was only the expression behind them that could hope to mean anything. It was with an inhuman exhaustion that the boy wrapped his arms around Hawke’s neck and allowed her to lift him from the dirty floor and prop him against her hip. He cuddled his face into her neck, sniffling loudly into her ear and burying his face into her hair.

“It’s going to be okay,” she vowed into his ear. “I’ll protect you.”

Those words Tobias translated; and the boy stifled his crying only a little as he messily wiped his nose onto her tunic. Then he added to her, “If you are determined to do this, we should return to the Chantry immediately. Guards will come and you clearly have no blood-claim on him. Once they learn about this Fenris, you will cede any control over his fate.”

She nodded her agreement and they descended the stair into the main house. She pulled the boy’s face against her neck as they passed Varania’s still body, absently humming half-remembered lullabies from Ferelden, praying that he’d remember his mother as she was and never, ever in the horrible manner she had ended.

She rapidly exited the hovel but was shocked into stillness when a lone man, garbed in the same black and buckles that adorned her frame, quickly rounded the corner and stared hatefully at her. She recognized the man, he’d been on _The Bloodied Bandit_. Great, as if this wretched night hadn’t been long enough already, now she had someone else with a grudge who wanted a piece of her.

“Shit,” she glowered and clutched Varania’s son closer. Apparently, the slaves’ uprising hadn’t seen all their captors dead. At least now she knew to whom Varania had betrayed her.

The single slaver brandished a long knife and demanded, “Hand him over, Lydia.”

He’d called her Lydia, she realized to no little satisfaction. So Varania had not sold out Hawke’s identity, had not betrayed the human to the Chantry. She’d neglected to tell the slavers who she really was. Perhaps she’d even done so in hopes that they’d be inadequately prepared to face her, though the elf couldn’t rightly tell her now; and this man, she realized with a cock of her lip, was undoubtedly one of the monsters that had seen to that.

As righteous anger for Varania’s fate set in, she once more felt uncertainties, many tied to the child currently cocked onto her hip, melt away. It didn’t matter if he wanted a piece of her. She wanted a piece of him, too.

Adjusting the elf’s weight against her side, she regarded the slaver- James, if she recalled correctly- and let an impertinent sneer grace her mouth. “Why aren’t you dead?” she queried in a mockingly irritated voice as if she were asking him to mind his manners. There was no sense in pretending once more to be weak or helpless. This bastard clearly already knew that wasn’t the case.

“ _The Bloodied Bandit_ had dozens of places to hide. You didn’t clean up that ship as well as you thought,” he taunted her before adding, “And I’m not the only one who made it out.”

She smirked. “You mean I’m not finished killing you all? Well goody, goody for me- I was beginning to find Minrathous rather dull.”

James raised his blade and regarded her steadily. “That elven whore sold you out to get out of paying for her protection and her whore son won’t be missed. Hand him over and I may let you try and convince me to tell White that I killed you here.”

Protection- the crew of _The Bloodied Bandit_ and possibly countless others had collectively blackmailed Varania into silence and poverty. That thought alone made the corners of her eyes go red with rage. Her son was merely another hunk of flesh to barter, young and innocent and malleable to suggestion. There was absolutely no way that Hawke would even consider giving him up when his fate was so clearly laid out for him. Then the lewd promise of sexual favors, which prompted dozens of colorful insults-mostly hinting at James’ inability to satisfy a woman- saw those barbs immediately decimated by the mere mention of White.

Shit. Shit, shit, and double shit.

So many bodies had been hurled into the ocean- how was she to know if a few corpses went missing? Despite her dislike for death in general, Hawke really liked dead bodies, liked the unequivocal knowledge that her foes had been defeated, liked seeing the flies touch their strange dance over corpses and telling her that the bad men would never trouble her again. But that bloody morning it had been nearly impossible to properly identify and tally the bodies; and her exhilaration at overthrowing Rajun clearly made her careless. She knew that son of a bitch White wanted a bite of her ass and now apparently he was in a position to take one- that position being, simply and tragically, ‘Undeceased.’ Damn it all, White needed to be much, much deader than he currently was or he stood the chance to make himself much, much more annoying… if that was even possible.

“Well, I’d be loath to let you go off lying to White, upstanding gentleman that he is,” she offered instead, shifting the elf into her right arm until she’d freed her left to raise in the slaver’s direction, summoning the elements of the sky’s fury to manifest there. “So how about you pick up that cute little rapier of yours like a big boy and I’ll demonstrate some of the less erotic usages of electricity?”

Before she could finish, Tobias materialized from the shadows behind James and coldly stated, “Avoid open conflict, Hawke,” before violently wrenching the slaver’s skull to the side until the scoundrel collapsed to the ground with a series of loud cracks.

The lightning in her hand dissipated in a flash of blue light, crackling its unused energy into the surrounding air and standing her short hairs on end. The child squealed and buried his head against her shoulder once more, leaving her to feel the slight shiver of his body as he began to shake and sniffle again, likely in similar suffering. Her jaw dropped as she gaped stupidly at Tobias… what kind of priest was this that could so casually extinguish a life? She recalled Sebastian always recited the Chant after he’d dispatched a group of enemies. She’d tutored herself to recognize the movement of his lips in prayer and summarily gave him peace as he struggled against his morals; Tobias on the other hand was entirely silent and still- a seemingly normal condition for him but wholly unsettling now that she truly noticed it.

She found herself seriously contemplating this priest with whom Aurelius had saddled her. Was this hollow, dispassionate man even a priest at all, she mused, or was he a glorified Chantry bodyguard? He’d never stated his occupation to her- she’d merely assumed it- but now that she thought about it, Tobias hadn’t uttered much of anything to her. She’d darted into battle at the behest of stranger with another stranger assigned to her by yet a third stranger. Maker, she was getting downright sloppy. There was little wonder as to why White wasn’t yet dead.

“We should return to the Chantry quickly. Others may come,” he told her forthright in his matter-of-fact manner that burgeoned no place for arguments.

Wherever it came from, she simply couldn’t fault his logic and nodded her agreement as they hurried from the undercity and into the upper district. No bandits or criminals interrupted their journey and though she swore she saw them now lingering in the shadows they made no move to attack them. She found herself wondering, again, about the man who escorted her.

Their reentrance into the Chantry was met with quiet. Two Templars permitted their entrance; two more permitted them into the inner-chambers.

It was there that Aurelius met them, asking quietly, “Varania?”

“Dead,” replied Tobias woodenly. “Murdered by the slavers to whom she betrayed Hawke.”

The Black Divine regarded her and the child in her arms and questioned, “And this?”

“Varania’s son. Hawke insisted she keep him. His uncle is an escaped slave and a friend of hers. He and Varania, it appears, were destined for slavery as well.”

She ignored the mention of friendship and pulled the boy still sniffling softly between his dreams closer, stating simply, “He is not a slave… and he will not become one.”

Aurelius gave her a long, heavy look. It told her a thousand things. It told her that the boy in her arms was indeed a slave. It told her that the Chantry was powerless to preserve him. It told her that he was disgusted, dismayed, and disheartened at the world he lived in. In a single glance, the Black Divine revealed the flaccidity of his hold on the politics of Minrathous.

Then he said, “If you leave him here and it is within my power to help him, Marian, I swear to you that I will help him.”

But it was not within his power and his careful qualifiers guaranteed that she knew it. “That is not good enough,” she asserted respectfully, acknowledging the candor the man before her had displayed entirely for her benefit.

Aurelius bowed his head, seeming to think heavily as the weight of the moment settled over him for the sake of those around them. Then he replied evenly, “I will see you and the boy out of Tevinter. I will explore more permanent solutions but I promise now that I will see you both gone.”

It was a beguiling promise, a blessed escape… but what then? Was there a second act to this play? So she asked, “And will slavers come after him?”

“If he is legally a slave then they will,” he replied with a blessed frankness. “Today they will. Tomorrow they will also: as well as next week, month, and year. If he is legal property in Tevinter, you must assume that someone will always come looking- debt is a cheap commodity to purchase and a child seems easy enough to collect,” he conceded gently. Before she managed a fraction of the spin required to turn her away, he placed his hand on her shoulder, beseeching, “Give me a week, Marian, to extend my influence. You may be surprised how far I can reach.”

“Will a week render you able to protect him?” she snapped as he turned to leave.

“I am only one between the two of us who can even think to try,” he answered once more, twinkling his dark eyes over his shoulder like a debutante and not the head of an entire religion, “and I am also in the better position to do so.”

A horribly familiar sensation settled into her chest, mistrust and paranoia, compressing her heart and lungs alike in dismal discontent as she questioned, “And what is it that you want in exchange?”

“Pardon?” he asked stupidly, turning back to give her a look of confused inquisitiveness.

“There is always a price that must be paid,” she muttered. “So what do you want, Aurelius? Gold? Treasure? Sex? Slaves? What is it you’re after?”

“I have gold and this place is full of valuable treasure; and if I wanted sex or slaves, I could take my pick. I want a week, Marian,” he answered calmly before taking a few hesitant steps forward, “to see if there is anything I can do to help you.”

Her arm was aching from carrying the boy for so long and the weight of the day was crashing down onto her shoulders. “Why are you helping me?”

“Because helping you helps countless others and because helping others is what the Chant tells us to do,” he answered simply. With a sage nod of the Divine’s head, he quietly bade the Templars to escort her to the women’s quarters.

In all her years, there were only a few times where Marian felt that a lack of sleep would actually be the death of her. After she’d killed Anders was one, when the nightmares were so bad she’d lay awake in the dark, terrified at the prospect that sleep could claim her. When Mother died had been another, night terrors again that kept her awake despite the Fade’s attempts to embrace her. Tonight, it was just the result of a day gone overlong, a day that had pulled her in quite nearly every direction she thought she could go.

The dormitory was quiet. In the dim light, she could make out several unoccupied beds. Selecting the nearest one, she eased back the sheets and placed Varania’s son between them, smiling when he began mumbling Arcanum and gibberish as he settled back into a deep sleep. Her hand almost unconsciously brushed his dark hair away from his face as she contemplated what on earth she was supposed to do with him. She was used to mothering mages, not children. And hadn’t she decided before Wycome that the last thing she needed was to be saddled with a child when the war was blazing across Thedas?

And then in Wycome… little Delia. The ordeal with Gerard Maison was far from over, she knew, feeling his mark itch ever so slightly. The psychological effects still haunted her, throwing her into fits of rage when demons would scream into her mind until Hoppers quieted them; and Hoppers, neither demon nor spirit but a single voice speaking directly into her mind from a simple metal button. Perhaps he was a ghost from one of Maison’s victims. Perhaps the button was some kind of arcane artifact possessed by a benign spirit. Perhaps she was simply going mad- she had to at least consider the possibility. It was becoming increasingly harder to tell but the final seemed the most likely or at least the most logical.

But one thing was certain- one day, sooner or later, Marian Hawke and Gerard Maison were going to meet again. He’d find her and finish what he started or she’d find him and end it once and for all. She wasn’t like Fenris, if the tiger was hunting her, she’d damn well be hunting it, too. She wouldn’t wait forever for Maison to find her, wouldn’t sit back and form attachments to people that Maison would cut through just to get at her…

Oh.

… those three years apart suddenly made a little more sense.

She looked at the boy again. This wasn’t anything like what happened between her and Fenris in Kirkwall. She couldn’t walk away just to keep him and subsequently herself safe- but keeping the kid still felt tantamount to strapping a bullseye onto his back. She had to find a way to get him back to Fenris and that in itself presented a whole myriad of other problems. Starkhaven was a half continent away, home of one of the last standing Circles in Thedas, and ruled by a priest that wanted her head on a platter. After the prince swore his vengeance upon her, she and Carver along with Isabela and Varric managed to dig up a heaping load of Sebastian’s past- debauchery, indeed, was a bit of an understatement- but was loath to use it unless there was no other choice; there was no guarantee that it would work- Sebastian had actually been rather forthcoming about his past, just not the sheer extent of it- and if it failed she knew it would backfire stupendously.

So the mere idea of heading into Starkhaven was problematic at its very core. That neglected to even factor in Fenris’ possible responses to her presence, the news of his sister’s death, and his nephew to boot- if he even believed her; but she knew that if a strange child just materialized on his doorstep with a note pinned to his shirt, Fenris would be even more suspicious. She shook her head in frustration as she recalled Aurelius’ assurance that the elf would be hunted. She simply couldn’t risk handing him off with a note and a pat on the head to some random mercenary.

“He is cute,” a feminine voice whispered beside her, shocking Hawke away from her thoughts. “What’s his name?”

Marian began to answer before realizing stupidly, “I don’t know it.” Maker, she didn’t even know his name. She didn’t even know how to ask it. There was a whole new challenge she’d have to tackle.

“These things often look better in the morning, serah. Sunlight and a few hours’ sleep can solve worlds of problems. Get some rest,” the sister beckoned quietly as she gestured to the vacant bed beside the boy. “He’s sleeping fine. He’s safe here.”

It was hard to argue with the sister, especially when she’d spoken similar words to her companions during her tenure in Kirkwall. With a final glance to assure the elf was tucked snugly into bed, she quickly turned her back and peeled off the slaver’s garb before donning the modest nightgown the Sister silently presented her. Evenings in Minrathous were much cooler than the days but the leather still stuck to her skin by a thin layer of perspiration. Grateful that at least she didn’t reek of sweat, she uttered her thanks to the sister and claimed a mattress for herself. The moment her head hit the soft pillow, she felt the day’s trials drag her down into the Fade’s open embrace where she fell, happily shucking the cumbersome burdens she’s assumed in the last twelve hours.

There she lay for nearly a half day, only once waking blearily in the still-dark morning to find the elf crawling into bed with her. The blue moonlight streaming through the windows revealed the tracks of tears over his cheeks and her heart panged at the memory of the terrible night she’d lost her own mother. Deciding immediately that this was a battle she neither cared to fight or win, she’d pulled him closer as she and her ex-lover’s newly orphaned nameless nephew drowsed off into the Fade again.

* * *

_End of Chapter 10_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya! Thanks as always to my fantastic betas, BuriedBeneath and AmericanCorvus, who keep my butt all grammatically correct and stuff as well as give me an excuse to search for and post dozens of adorable animal photos on my twitter as a means of emotional blackmail.
> 
> And (shameless plug) if you aren’t reading it, go check out Choices and give AmericanCorvus some love.
> 
> As always, thanks to everyone who reads and reviews. You guys are awesome and you make me super happy. And again, thanks for your support and continued patience while I get post-surgery me back into the swing of things.


	11. The Enemy of my Enemy

Nemesis  
Chapter 11- The Enemy of my Enemy

“ _This is Hawkward, isn’t it?”  
Merrill_  


“Why would she hide this from me?” Carver mumbled into his shaking curled fist. “We’re supposed to be working together… why would she _lie_?”

Fenris couldn’t imagine a thing to say- not a word of comfort or condemnation. He felt numb, like the world was something existing around him and required not even the slightest thought of his input. Things were shifting, he knew instinctively, but he lacked the ability to understand with the changes as they occurred. He needed to hide away somewhere and think for long hours- to secret himself somewhere safe in a dilapidated mansion and sit alone with his confused thoughts.

She _killed_ him? Marian Hawke, Kirkwall’s snarky resident bleeding heart, had bided her time and _murdered_ her own mentor the very night Kirkwall fell into such chaos?

How was he even supposed to process this? A few minutes, hours, perhaps even centuries would likely not provide him with any answers- Maker, he just needed time to think and he found himself cursing at that singular compulsion; he always needed _time_ … always needed time and more time because more time always postponed the requirement of making an actual choice. His past choices were plagued with poor judgment- Varania’s haunting words in Kirkwall had proved his preference for inertia was not entirely unfounded.

“You wanted it,” her voice called from somewhere deep within his mind, echoing through that filthy bar an entire lifetime ago. “You competed for it.”

The words niggled themselves into his ears, neither wanted nor completely unexpected. From everything he’d managed to glean from his past before his escape- before he’d stumbled blindly into the Free Marches where a set of bad directions from a mercenary had pointed him into the City of Chains… and a scared dwarf had led him to Marian and subsequently into the very conundrum he’d found himself- there was a pattern he’d woven throughout his life, peppered with an apparently long history of making terrible decisions.

His intentions to free his family were founded within a system that systematically exploited and destroyed his people, which was, now that he truly considered it, one of the stupidest decisions he could have possibly made. The gravest error being his willing sacrifice of both his body and soul for the opportunity to play the lab rat in an untested experiment under a man that was more sadist than scientist.

And in the end he’d won the lyrium that eventually granted his freedom and his future but he’d paid the cost- his past. His entire life before he’d awakened naked and chained, screaming bloody murder as the lyrium was gouged into his skin- simply gone. Perhaps forever.

Only the Maker knew how dearly he had paid. He certainly didn’t.

But at least in the end, he’d seen to it that Danarius and Hadriana paid too with the mere end of their lives instead of the entirety of it; and he, ever the fool, believed that was where he could claim his freedom. Now there was just an ill feeling laid deep in his stomach, and he wondered if what he’d found instead was just another form of slavery. Killing them did not make it better. Killing Danarius was akin to slapping a tourniquet onto a neck wound- it would certainly stop the bleeding but he risked his head if he didn’t seek another treatment. That solution was destined to fail- at least that’s what the Chant told him… that the only noble murder was one done with compassion instead of anger, a mercy committed for love instead of hatred.

_Marian… what have you done?_

But the words were unspoken and she wasn’t there to answer so the question just echoed through his mind, bouncing within his skull as he tried to reconcile the Marian who had murdered Anders with the Marian who had ceaselessly defended him- and quickly found himself at the onset of yet another headache that betrayed no hope of ceasing.

The clanking shuffle of armor drew Fenris from his dark thoughts in time to hear Carver snarl, “Answer me! Why did she lie, Varric?”

The dwarf sighed and began massaging his temples with his stubby fingers. “I can’t say for sure but if I were to take a guess, I’d say she was scared. You two hadn’t been on speaking terms for twelve hours when she killed him. I found her when I went to say goodbye. She was devastated.”

Sebastian chose that moment to interject with a simple question. “Devastated?” His fingertips were pressed into steeples against his forehead as bright eyes caught the dwarf’s gaze and held it with concerned inquisition- acting the prince once again, it seemed. No, Fenris realized as he noticed as he caught Sebastian tapping his heel against the ground, not simply a haughty prince- the human was nervous, extremely nervous about the inevitable rebuke that had to be coming shortly.

“He was her friend, Choir Boy,” Varric quickly snapped, shooting a hateful glare towards Fenris and the prince that neither had ever been privy to before. It was a shriveling sort of hatred the dwarf bestowed upon them… that resentment was not lost on Fenris as being somehow undeserved at least as far as Varric was concerned. “How do you think you’d feel if you had to kill a friend of yours?”

Without a pause that would have allowed the beat of a single breath or even the edge of confliction to pollute him, the prince growled, “I’d feel better than I would if I’d allowed him to live having committed such an atrocity.”

“Well good for you,” the dwarf spat and rose as he stepped closer, letting his abbreviated trench coat flare around him like the impending storm. “Pity for her that Anders wasn’t just a friend- he was her confidante, her teacher. He was practically a brother to her, damned near a father.” Varric leaned closer, inching into the Starkhaven regent’s personal space and coaxing the fabric of his jacket to settle into an imposing cut that amplified the nasty sneer that overtook his face. “How about your brothers or your father, Choir Boy? You think you could have stuck a knife in your dear daddy and been perfectly all right?”

And Varric crept closer still, using the same menacing demeanor and tone that he’d used when he told ghost stories on so very few of those cold, windless nights on Sundermount- eyes just slightly too wide and excited, voice both rasping and snarling at the same time as he weaved stories of boogeymen beneath the bed and of demons that hid themselves in teddy bears- although Fenris suspected these words lacked the artifice that had made them entertaining stories and not imminent threats. “And remember before you answer that,” he growled, “remember that Marian Hawke _did_ stick a knife in him- even if she did it later than you’d have liked. She took him to the outskirts of Kirkwall and killed him somewhere where the memory of his death wouldn’t inspire others to call him a martyr. I watched the aftermath- witnessed something you two assholes didn’t. I watched her cry over his body while Kirkwall burned.”

Varric finally turned and stepped toward Carver, capturing and releasing several long breaths to cast his fury back at the fire before finally finishing casually over his shoulder, “You think about that, Choir Boy. Which execution would have been justice- the one you demanded of her or the one she gave him?”

With that, the dwarf focused his attention up into the night sky and sighed heavily, like some great burden had fallen off him. This had to have been a weight on Varric’s shoulders as well, albeit one he’d thought he could vent without condemning the elder Hawke. Sebastian fell silent, unable to speak another word. He stared down at the ground as though he hoped the dwarf’s accusations could be answered there. The dirt, however, offered the prince no condolences or solutions and so he remained furiously silent with his jaw and fingers clenched.

“You think that justice should be hot and furious, Sebastian- that it is a task of necessity to be made in the heat of passion,” Varric lectured quietly, turning his short torso back round to face his would-be accusers. He looked at Fenris then before shaking his head as though he decided better of it and returning his gaze skyward. “But it’s not. Its cold…

“Justice- _real_ justice- is a heavy measured task meted out by someone who has weighed the consequences of each outcome and chosen a path that must be adhered to. Justice is a weight that must be borne around the neck every minute of every day. Say what you will about Anders- he at least understood that. Hawke understood that.

“And when you put it upon Hawke to do that, she did it because she understood simply that it had to be done. And you did not… because you are incapable of that sort of thinking.” Varric snorted to himself as he patted down his vest in search of something, “Prince indeed- we should have known it from the start. Your idea of justice for Anders was little more than a spoiled babe screaming for his bottle.”

“If she’d only told me…” Sebastian started before Carver cut him off.

“Told you what?” the disgraced Templar spat. “‘Hey, I’m totally going to murder Anders later so just hang around?’” Carver laughed hard at that sentiment and Varric joined in, his short body bent back as they bellowed into the night; the sound, dark and hateful, held no hint of levity. “I’m sure that would have gone swimmingly- wonder why she didn’t just announce it to Meredith; surely that would have saved everyone a world of misunderstandings.”

Sebastian looked as though he were trying to mount an argument that, clearly, wasn’t going to get him anywhere and certainly wasn’t going to earn him any goodwill from their captors turned present company. Fenris took the chance to step in, hoping to remove a bit of the focus from Sebastian, and dared to ask, “If she killed him then what exactly were we fighting back there?”

And suddenly once more, they were simply five people sitting round a fire pit, each of them avoiding the gazes of the others by focusing onto the dancing flames. Merrill tapped her fingers impatiently together, a habit born of the elf’s perpetually uneasy nerves, and Carver brushed his fingers absently through her hair in a gesture that was as comforting as it was unconscious. Sebastian wore a grimace only slightly less horrified than the one that took over his face when Anders’ claimed the lives in the Chantry; but now it was a horror directed at whatever that monster in the woods had been. Fenris imagined his own countenance to be much less transparent but shared the sentiment nevertheless.

Even the dwarf seemed hesitant to speak again, finally meeting the warrior’s eyes and settling with, “You saw him… it… whatever it is… we do not know.” Varric pulled out a small, ornate clay pipe and packed some dried herbs into it. He tamped the nose several times before striking a single match to set them aflame. Several long puffs preceded the next words of, “This camp… these people have worked rather furiously to expel the spirit of Justice…”

“Demon,” Carver amended softly. “That thing is a demon.”

“We do not know that,” Varric corrected quietly. “Frankly, we don’t know much of anything. That’s why we’re seeking outside help. We have to purge Justice from Anders’ corpse and kill it once and for all.”

“Then what exactly is stopping you from doing it?” Fenris questioned simply, trying his damnest not to make the query sound like an accusation. From what he’d witnessed of Anders, it was obvious that greater powers were at play here and he desperately wanted to know exactly what in Justice had twisted Marian’s precious Anders into a mass murderer, what happened to Justice when Anders died, and what that damnable spirit wanted now.

“You saw the fanatics,” Varric reminded the two interlopers. “You ever seen normal men fight that way?”

Carver interjected before Sebastian or Fenris could offer any kind of answer. “You saw a bit of what they’re capable of but you haven’t seen how far these people can go.” Reaching a long arm out, he gestured for the pipe in Varric’s hand, which the dwarf offered without a word. Carver took a few deep inhales of the smoke, giving an apologetic look to Merrill as she scooted away from him, clearly not enjoying the acrid aroma.

He’d seen Isabela and Varric smoke it before, calling it ‘tea’ or some nonsense though Fenris had never seen anyone get so giggly from the leaves used in the beverage by the same name. The smell was more bitter and biting than the fragrant tobacco Danarius had smoked. On the few occasions they’d convinced him to imbibe, he’d found the effects to be extremely pleasing, wrapping him in a blanket of pleasant muzziness for several hours.

“Lyrium is running low,” the boy offered them the simple explanation, “This helps take the edge off.”

“I bet.” Fenris chuckled his answer, contemplating for just a moment how appealing the idea of a few hours peace would be after the horror of the last few days.

Then Carver continued, each word releasing a wisp of smoke like he was some kind of human-dragon hybrid. “I was among the first to come up against them before Anders managed to amass the group he has now. We were moving a senior Enchanter and her brother, hands down two of the most docile mages I’ve ever had the privilege to know…”

He stopped and stared into the fire for a long moment, shaking his head slightly before looking up again to continue but Fenris saw his eyes glaze slightly with whatever intoxicant the pipe delivered, likely a poor substitute for the Lyrium the Chantry had him addicted to. “We were talking about something,” Carver muttered, “supper that evening or something like it- really inconsequential shit- then they just turned and attacked us. No warning. They went from asking about kippers to slashing at their wrists.

“The brother managed to kill one of us before he died. She took two, her attacks bled out her brother entirely before we were able to subdue her. It was an inexpert use of blood magic- amateurish; if they’d had even the slightest amount of experience, I don’t doubt for a moment that they could have overcome us before we even realized what was happening.”

He took another puff and sighed the smoke’s release, staring without seeing forward into the orange fire. “When Enid came back to herself a few hours later, she had no recollection of having done it, could only trust the bodies of the Templars on the ground, the corpse of her brother, and our word that it had been her actions that did it. We did not even know what to do with her; she was… completely inconsolable.”

“I’ve seen mages affect similar sentiments of regret,” Fenris snorted skeptically.

Even the intoxication couldn’t mask the sheer malice in Carver’s eyes as he retorted, “And how many have killed themselves?”

“Pardon?”

“Trust me when I say that when she slashed open the veins in her arms that night, it wasn’t because she fancied another go with blood magic.” He shook his head absently, looking for a moment like he still did not believe the events he spoke of. “There was nothing we could do to help her. She died within minutes.”

Suicide- he’d heard of stranger things, mostly from potential magisters unable to carry the burdens of their abilities or lacking the ruthlessness to survive in the fiercely competitive senate. The witch from this story of Carver’s, however, seemed to carry a different weight- remorse, repentance, rage… repression… those things, Fenris understood and he found himself feeling somehow sad for her- for Enid, for a blood puppet allegedly unable to comprehend the gravity of her own actions.

Allegedly.

“The next night, we fought a small group of the fanatics. After we killed them, I saw Anders for the first time since Kirkwall.” Carver took another deep inhale from Varric’s pipe, holding the smoke for several long moments before breathing it back out. “He kept his distance but I know it was him.”

“What did he do?”

Carver chuckled to himself and shrugged loosely. “He waved. Then he left. But I saw him; it was dark but I saw his face… I could smell the death on him.”

Hawke had always been able to shrug off a thrall. Was she inherently somehow different from this Enid? So he dared to ask, “So tell me how is it that your sister is somehow immune to this.”

Carver lifted to pipe to his mouth again only to be stymied by Merrill’s hand hovering over the glowing embers. “You’ve had enough,” she murmured and Carver lowered the pipe in near perfect synchronicity with her descending hand.

An argument that’s been had before, Fenris realized. They were sitting in the middle of a rebel camp headed by a lapsed Templar and an admitted apostate… an addict and an apologetic blood mage… this was getting stranger by the second.

“She isn’t immune, Fenris. I don’t think any of us are,” Merrill answered his question quietly. “We sent one of ours to see him… to see what he wanted once we’d heard he was recruiting…”

Carver erupted with a furious shout of, “I _never_ would have permitted it! If I’d known…”

“But you did not know and it is done now. Keili knew it could be dangerous.”

“She made her choice based on misinformation. Marian _knew_ …”

“She wasn’t even here when it happened, Carver. I’m certain if she’d known we were going to send Keili she would have given us the full picture.”

“How could she have _kept_ this from us?”

“She made a mistake, ma vhenan. We’ve all made them.”

“There you go again. _Defending_ her!”

And Merrill, in a tone he’d never experienced or known from the blood mage, screeched wildly, “Someone has to! She needs support and she’s seen a frightening lack of it! From you! From all of them! _She killed Anders, Carver!_ And all you can think is that you’ve been somehow betrayed! It hasn’t even occurred to you that she may have kept her silence because she was _hurting_ and was afraid she’d be _judged_ for it?”

The moment the words passed from her lips, her head bowed in shame, like she expected some terrible rebuke from the series of syllables that tumbled from her treacherous mouth. “We have to help each other. If we fragment then we have nothing to fight for,” she added softly but with no lack of conviction. “You know that, ma vhenan, and she has to be here if you mean to judge her.” Her proud shoulders collapsed into her body… and she seemed unable to deal with the stress of their situation. Merrill, for lack of better words, withered into her own body.

And for a moment, he truly pitied her, bumbling and confused as she was.

“Merrill… no…” Carver gushed as he reached out to cradle her. “I’m frustrated and… puzzled, love. This is a lot to be hit with.” The boy continued on into their embrace, murmuring into her sharp ears every stupid, meaningless platitude Fenris could imagine.

Merrill granted a weary eye toward Fenris again and continued in a low voice, “It was about two months after Kirkwall when we started hearing rumors that Anders was recruiting mages to fight for the uprising. Hawke was off with Isabela Carver decided to send a few Templars along with a mage who’d known Anders in the Ferelden Circle, Keili, to see what it was about. She confronted him and returned a mindless wreck two weeks later.”

“Extremely addled,” Carver added quietly, still caressing Merrill’s cheek as he spoke, “But otherwise completely uncorrupted, unpossessed, and unharmed. I’d even go so far as to say she appeared to have been well cared for.”

“And the Templars?” Fenris inquired over the lump that appeared suddenly in his throat.

The younger Hawke shook his head. “Never returned. She could never tell us what happened to them.”

Silence hovered over the group for a long while until Varric worked up the courage to ask the question that hung unspoken. “Then what did he want with her?”

“We tried questioning her but she wasn’t much help,” Carver replied. “She was either locked inside her own head or speaking gibberish. Other than that she was perfectly healthy, not a scratch on her. The next day she woke up, dressed, and came out to tell us that she was ready to meet with Anders and see what was going on.”

“You mean she…”

“Absolutely no memory of it. Wasn’t until we were transporting Enid from the camp that we put together that Anders… Justice has some way of, I don’t know, possessing the mages around him en masse, I suppose.”

“What did he want with her then?” Sebastian asked, looking slightly ill as he doubtless considered the many possibilities of what Justice could have wanted with a trusted and well-connected member of his killer’s rebellion.

“We assume that he questioned her about us. Fortunately, she did not have a plethora of information- that was more than a little deliberate on our part. We split the camp and moved as soon as she was well enough to do so. That was when he attacked Enid.

“So you understand our quandary a bit better now, I hope. We’re gathering cells of ejected mages but Anders cannot, under any circumstances, be permitted to find any of the camps. The consequences would be disastrous,” Carver finished with a grave look directed at Sebastian, seeming to understand that Fenris would either follow the regent or do as he would and therefore needn’t be convinced.

The prince shook his head slowly as he regarded the younger Hawke. With a frustrated sound, he rose and commenced to pacing, his long strides taking him quickly between the edge of the trees and a large boulder- the contagious nervousness irritated Fenris to no end. “Does the Chantry even know about this?” the archer finally inquired.

“I haven’t been able to speak with anyone directly, Marian isn’t the only Hawke with a sizable bounty on her head as I’m certain you’re aware,” the boy explained, remaining seated in the face of Sebastian’s clear agitation. “But I have more than a few reasons to fear that if the powers-that-be are apprised of the situation their solution will be expanding the Annulment even farther. Anders can’t possess mages if they’re all dead.”

“At least we hope that’s the case,” Varric added dismally. “We don’t even know that for certain.”

Fenris ignored the obvious implications of what Varric just said, lingering instead on Carver’s words. Expand the Annulment farther? “How much farther can it go?” the words escaped Fenris before he had the chance to consider them.

“That is precisely the sort of thing we do not want to find out… the Annulment’s gone as far as the Chantry can reach. They might try to push it into Rivain or even…”

Sebastian interrupted with a startled gasp, “It could go north.” At Carver’s sage nod, the prince buried his head in his hands and whispered, “Oh, Maker. Maker, no. Not north- shit, it cannot move north.”

The novelty of Sebastian using such crass language was outweighed by the fear Fenris saw displayed openly in his eyes. As the reigning prince of one of the northliest sovereign states in the Free Marches, Sebastian understood better than anyone what havoc would rain from the sky if the Chantry attempted to expand the Annulment, understood the danger Starkhaven would be directly placed in if its northern neighbor was provoked so thoroughly.

Fenris rose to his feet and stood before the prince, blocking him from continuing his infernal pacing. “The Imperium would never stand for it- the Chantry _must_ know that,” the elf reached for the most reassuring tone he could muster given the circumstances but he, too, was filled with a sort of dread at the thought of Tevinter going to battle against the rest of Thedas.

Maker, what if they won this time? The entire land would be the Imperium again and Fenris would have no place to hide.

Sebastian regarded Fenris, nodding in silent understanding of their predicaments, before he turned toward Carver and explained, “There have been rumors… magisters in Tevinter’s southern regions being taken from their homes in the night and disappearing.” Then he shifted his eyes to the ground, like the words he spoke were painful to even utter. “I just assumed them to be baseless.”

“False, possibly. Baseless, no. The unrest touches all corners of the map,” Carver assured the prince. “Anders must be dealt with in-house, Sebastian, or you may find your Starkhaven at the forefront of a new world war. That isn’t even factoring in a multitude of other ramifications.” The boy paused for a moment, weighing his words before huffing out a short sigh. “For instance, Sebastian, if Tevinter moves its troops south, how long do you think it will be before everybody’s favorite horned heathens make a grab for the mainland?”

It was a question that needed no answer. The Qunari were perpetually battling for a toehold on the mainland- if the Imperial army moved its focus south, the Qunari could take that ground before they were even alerted to the shifting in the troops. This situation facing the Mage rebellion was looking bleaker by the second- Justice running amok, no prospects of organized outside help in the foreseeable future, the Hawke siblings hopelessly staring down the barrel of a worldwide war, and a wildcard third opponent champing at the bit to wreck it’s own havoc on an already compromised ecosystem.

Were Fenris a betting man, he’d wager his stakes in massive losses on all sides if the Chantry joined the fight. In fact, Fenris didn’t see anyone who stood to benefit from the powder keg Anders had perched his beloved Hawke upon.

Sebastian spun on his feet and began a litany of, “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!” With a final loud shout, a yawp contaminated with anger and frustration, Sebastian gripped the cool end of a burning log and slammed it into a nearby tree, releasing a flurry of sparks blasting like a fury of shooting red stars into the black night. “Fuck!” he screamed into the empty night.

Carver remained unimpressed by the archer’s rage and snarked, “I see you understand the seriousness of the situation we’re facing here.”

“Why wasn’t I informed?” Sebastian snarled at the Templar, stalking over to grab Carver by the neck of his tunic and wrench him from his seat. “How could the Free Marches have not been warned against this impending threat?”

The boy let loose a vicious grin and sneered, “Because when we tried to tell you, your Templar ended up fucking my sister!”

In his shock at such a crass sort of statement, Sebastian dropped Carver’s lapels and backed away. And just like that, Fenris found himself to be the unwitting center of attention. Merrill, Varric, and Sebasian all stared unabashedly upon him as a new set of long term ramifications of falling into bed with Marian revealed themselves to the elf- and only a short while ago, he thought her potential pregnancy was the worst case-scenario.

So that was what she’d wanted to talk about. She should have opened with that. “I killed my former mentor and now he’s running around possessing mages and there’s a decent chance Tevinter and the rest of Thedas are about to go to war. Also, the Qunari could be a problem again.” Their meeting may have gone a bit differently if she’d kept her head straight and remained objective… but that was a problem that seemed to plague both of them.

At the very least she could have left a note, he groused silently. It was doubtful, however, that any of his current company would share that particular sentiment, so he kept his mouth shut.

He took this as a sign that this was the perfect time to inspect his toes. Was that a speck of mud on his ankle? He should scrub his feet sometime soon. Warily, he eyed what just might have been the earliest stages of an ingrown nail- probably not but it was never a bad idea to exercise caution. Should that be dealt with now or later? Likely now… he decided under the heavy stare of his companions and wondered if he could repair the snag with no more than his gaze.

His toes were downright _fascinating_ under this sort of scrutiny.

“Remind me, Varric,” Merrill’s voice chimed into the broken silence, “what’s the word you invented for when Hawke does something that causes everyone to feel terribly uncomfortable?”

“Hawkward…” Varric answered.

A nervous giggle accompanied her lilt of, “This is Hawkward, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed, Daisy. It is indeed.”

The group fell into uneasy silence once more although Fenris was, gratefully, no longer the center of attention and let his mind amble back toward Marian, the woman who’d murdered her own mentor because, as the dwarf said, it simply needed to be done. He wondered- and suspected it would not be the last time this thought plagued him- which of them had been harder for her to strike down. Jealousy, inappropriate as that sentiment was given the circumstances, reared its ugly head and Fenris found himself selfishly hoping somehow that killing Anders had hurt her less.

“She cried for you too, Fenris,” Varric offered quietly, as though he was reading the elf’s thoughts straight from his face. “Just thought you’d like to know.”

Fenris snorted, feeling only an ember of the anger that should have risen within him when thoughts of their last encounter in Kirkwall found him. “You have my thanks, dwarf. No matter how I tried, that knife simply would not twist itself.”

Ignoring those statements, Carver returned to his seat, albeit a little wobbly, and gestured for Sebastian to do the same. “If you two are serious about stopping Anders, then I have a task in mind for you that might help us do that.”

Fenris looked up in silent inquisition, glancing quickly at the prince to assure that he was doing the same. Sebastian nodded in mute understanding. For all their conflictions regarding Carver’s sister, there was no sense in even pretending there was not an urgent necessity to see Anders and Justice put down for good. Marian’s role in this drama would come into play at a later date- of that he was beyond certain. She was north for now but the sparrow would migrate southward again when the conditions were right.

Carver gave a great nod, seeming to silently convince himself that this next move was a good and proper idea, before stating, “There is a Grey Warden in the area who knew Anders before his possession. He may be able to tell us a little more about him. If he can give us anything that could possibly help, we need to find him.”

But before any vocal response could have been made, a great rumbling shook the earth around them. Pebbles vibrated against the dirt. Small stones shot up into the sky. A strange, magical electricity permeated the air in queer synchronization with the small quakes the earth and tickled a light sting beneath Fenris’ bare feet and between his toes before shooting its lightly barbed vines up his body.

It was the lyrium, he knew instinctively. Something magical was shifting the dirt and sending its sting into him.

“Which Warden does it look for?” came a deep, booming voice from seemingly nowhere along with the sounds of tiny earthquakes. The huge, thunderous noise sounded from behind him, causing him to leap from his relaxed position and spin wildly around.

Sebastian and Fenris both searched for the source of the noise when the elf noticed the peculiar rock formation he’d settled near now sported a pair of glowing eyes, star white and fire burning. Grounding himself in preparation for battle, he instinctively reached for his sword, cursing when he remembered that it had been taken from him. Sebastian, apparently sharing a similar sentiment, raised his fists against the revealed golem in a defense that would have provided absolutely no protection against their foe. Little matter, Fenris smirked to himself and let the lyrium ignite its bite over his body, he wasn’t exactly helpless without a weapon- he _was_ a weapon.

Before he could move to attack, Merrill tithered, “By the Dread Wolf! Shale, you shouldn’t sneak up on us like that!” That gave him pause, mostly for the completely unconcerned, undaunted, almost _friendly_ way the elf chided the massive, sentient pile of stone.

Massive, Fenris realized as he scrutinized it further, but indeed quite small for a golem.

A golem, he repeated to himself.

This thing was a golem- His brain kept stuttering back to that. This was a golem; a golem had just sneaked up on their group and Merrill and Carver seemed unacceptably unconcerned about that.

“I am quite incapable of sneaking,” it boomed in Merrill’s general direction. “I was here when it arrived. It is hardly my fault that the Pigeon and its squishy companions are so direly unaware of its surroundings.”

Before Fenris could fully process the simple words of the golem speaking before him, Carver gritted his teeth and ground out, “My name is Carver Hawke- not Pigeon.”

“Hawks are birds. Pigeons are birds,” Shale reasoned with a gesture very much like a shrug. “Why should it care to be differentiated as one vile specimen over another?”

Carver was arguing semantics with a golem? That thought kept racing through the elf’s mind as he observed the familiarity between Carver, Shale, and Merrill, wondering absently if his jaw was hanging in the same open gape as Sebastian’s.

Taking several deep breaths, Carver met the golem’s gaze and said levelly, “We’re looking for a Grey Warden called Oghren. Do you know him?” with an apparent understanding that arguing this point with eight feet of boulder was a futile exercise.

The gravely, rasping clatter that shuddered from the mass of rock and magic was a sound that Fenris only dimly identified as laughter. “If it seeks the drunken Warden, it should know it would have a difficult time securing its assistance.”

Unable to keep his mouth shut for a moment longer, Fenris regarded Carver and gawked, “You have a golem? A _GOLEM_? Even the magisters weren’t stupid enough to keep these things around!”

He barely had the opportunity to feel the ground tremble beneath his feet before they were swept away from it entirely. Cragged digits grasped around his chest and held him aloft as the shifting stone face came violently close. Then that calm, rumbling speech came again, “I keep myself. I am not kept.”

Dimly, he heard Sebastian and Carver shout something at the golem. He, however, found himself caught within its grasp and its empty eyes- found himself seeing something in the blank space where cognition should not have been but somehow was struck with an abundance of it. With that peculiar thought, Fenris found himself dropped rather unceremoniously back to the earth where he managed to land with a passing semblance of grace, hitting the ground with an artful crouch instead of plowing into the ground full-stop. The golem, this Shale, did not back away but eyed him rather curiously- or with an expression as close to curiosity as a pile of rock could muster- and he, lacking the knowledge to understand exactly what he gazed into stared blankly back.

“Those markings are lyrium,” it stated rather obviously.

“They are,” he answered with a somewhat casual shrug; despite how distinctly _uncasual_ this entire situation felt to him. This conversation made him nervous but he had no intention giving a mere boulder the upper hand. His face fell into its schooled blankness and he found an odd comfort in knowing the golem would have no more luck divining his expressions than he did of it.

A golem. He was talking with a golem. So this must be madness, then. Fenris always figured it would be more… funny. Weren’t madmen always laughing? If there was humor here, Fenris wasn’t seeing it.

“Was this done to it against its will?” the golem inquired simply with an odd tilt of its massive head.

Temporarily reassured of his sanity, Fenris shook his head and answered, “No. I submitted willingly- or so I’ve been told.” He added the last bit as much as a comfort as a disclaimer. The only one who knew anything of his involvement in the rite was Varania and, given her treachery, he wasn’t completely willing to discard the possibility of another lie from her.

Shale lumbered away, drawing itself up to its full height before declaring imperiously, “I have been told that I squished my master’s tiny head between my fingers. How did the Blue Slave free itself, I wonder?”

The vivid image of a skull popping like overheated glass along with the knowledge that particular skull had belonged to one that Shale designated as ‘master’ had Fenris reappraising the miniature golem in a new light. A short chuckle escaped him before he replied, “I ripped my master’s heart out.” Crossing his arms with no little amusement, he awaited Shale’s reaction.

And the Shale did not disappoint him, musing coyly, “Bah, organs are squishy things, aren’t they? Such a pity the magisters are not made of stronger stuff.”

“I did not find it a pity at all. I rather rejoiced in it.”

“I have found the condition to be rather pleasing as well,” the stones chortled in something approaching amusement. “I understand that the Blue Slave is regarded as Fenris.”

“I am called such. I believe the rather massive pile of rock before me is called Shale.”

The rock bowed slightly and answered, “Indeed.”

So Fenris bowed in turn and replied, “Indeed.”

And with that word, the strange dance he’d engaged in ended with the thankful lack of a certain elf being crushed into a bloody pulp by the stone guardian. The golem withdrew and rose once more to its diminished but still intimidating height, shifting its white eyes to Carver and stating, “The drunken dwarf is a stubborn but simple beast. The Pigeon should appeal to its baser needs.”

“How do you know Oghren? Could you convince him to join us?”

“My presence would mean little. The drunken dwarf does whatever it pleases. It was pleased to battle with Daylen Amell against the Blight. Amell was an admirable human. It is right that his people call him a Hero, though they are squishy and weak and deserve no right to speak of him at all.”

“Do you know where Amell is? Could he help us?” Carver rose to his feet, staggering for a moment before he found his feet, and gazed hopefully at the golem.

“No. He has gone after the swamp witch,” Shale spoke in a strange quaking manner, almost as though it were sad. But that was impossible; Fenris knew golems had no sovereignty, no motivation of their own. Then again, he’d never exactly heard one speak before either. “It would be foolish if it sought help from him. He is done with its troubles. He has moved onto something he deemed better.”

Varric cocked his head and asked, “What do you mean?”

“Only that he is done with its silly quests. It should not pester me further on the matter or it may find itself further shortened, midget.”

“Midget?” Varric reeled back before rose to his feet, spitting, “I’ll have you know dwarves…”

“But it is not a dwarf. It is a short man in a fancy, tailored coat. It is a disgrace to its heritage,” Shale spat with a flurry of pebbles. “It is a disgusting and vile creature and I loathe every moment I suffer near it. Someone take it away, I wish my presence cleansed of it.”

“Varric is a trusted friend, Shale. He’s staying,” Carver snapped. “Now if you’ve got any advice on recruiting Oghren…”

“Get it drunk. Failing that…” the stone went silent for several long moments. The lack of movement from breathing or just the minor twitches that animated the living form made the golem appear once more a simple statue. Just when Fenris was beginning to wonder if this Shale had broken down, it sprung back. “Tell it ‘sometimes people need to be kept from doing stupid things, even for good reasons.’ If it insists on being thick-headed, say ‘Atrast nal tunsha.’”

“Atrast nal tunsha- May you always find your way in the dark,” Varric translated. “That’s the old language. Is there any significant context?”

“None a midget would understand. I am astonished it was even able to comprehend such a complex tongue.”

Varric shook his head and turned back to Carver, “I should probably go along on this one. I doubt anyone other than this undersized boulder would be able to use the old tongue properly.”

“Right,” Carver agreed with a nod. He ducked his head for a moment in quiet contemplation before looking back at the dwarf and saying, “Varric, accompany Sebastian and Fenris to find this Oghren and bring him back for questioning. I want him here willingly. He’ll be no help if he’s kicking and screaming with a pack of Grey Wardens behind him. Take Margot with you- if she wants to vouch for these two, then let her keep them in line.”

“Consider it done, Junior,” the dwarf replied. Fenris and Sebastian both nodded although the elf felt more than a little disquieted at the prospect of taking orders from Carver Hawke.

The boy shifted his attention back to the golem. “Shale, since you’re here, would you assist the other Templars in acquiring that lyrium shipment heading into Tevinter?”

“Will I be permitted to crush their puny Tevinter heads?”

“Only if they resist… and they usually do.” Carver shrugged with the same quirky half-smile his sister often used.

“Delightful,” the golem chortled with a snide upturn of its mouth. “When can we leave?”

Fenris listened absently as Carver summoned Margot and detailed the route both parties would be taking, noting the dangers they’d likely face and the cities, people, and places they’d need to avoid. What lingered at his attention instead was Shale and that strange upturn he’d seen on the golem’s broad stone skull. It looked almost like an expression, like the thought of popping skulls between two columns of stone brought it some kind of pleasure. It looked like a smile… but Fenris knew that a golem couldn’t smile.

Then again, Fenris was finding a lot of things he’d previously known were wrong. Perhaps this was just another one.

* * *

_End of Chapter 11_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a slow chapter, but we’ll be picking up speed soon! I don’t suppose anyone knows about my torrid bro-mances with Shale and Oghren. God, I love those two. I am STILL mad they didn’t show up in DA2 (although I took a small consolation in the “Did you hear that pigeons in Ferelden are disappearing?” It was like a personal shout out) but hopefully they’ll make an appearance in DA3.
> 
> Anyhoo- MASSIVE thanks to AmericanCorvus and BuriedBeneath for their fabulous beta services! You two are awesome!
> 
> And, as always- Thanks to everyone who takes the time to read and review! I’ll catch up on those tomorrow!


	12. Church and State

Nemesis  
Chapter 12- Church and State

_“The Senate is full of spoiled, posh children fighting about which settlement the Qunari will strike next when they are not busying themselves with murdering each other in their beds.”  
Aurelius_

It was late the next morning before Hawke arose to sunlight blazing in through the open stained-glass windows and the sounds of chirping filtering through the breeze; the windows must have served as a perch for birds- good.  That would come in handy.  It must have been nearing noon- midnight excursions always invited a bit of a lie in and she was all too happy to indulge herself after a long day.  After everything that had happened last night…

That was when she realized that she’d awakened alone.  The boy was nowhere to be seen.

Great, apparently the elf took after Fenris.  Fantastic.

Then uncertainty hit her, melting her bemusement away in a rush of adrenaline.  Darting up, she searched the empty dormitory for the elf and her clothes and found them both missing.  Suddenly disquieted, she began to fear what could have happened.  A flurry of curses tumbled from her lips, spewing forth her venomous anger.  Where had they taken the boy?  She’d never had to be responsible for an innocent life before and the task settled a heavy weight over her heart.  What recklessness had brought her back to the Black Chantry, back to the source of this blasted infection?

“Serah, good afternoon!” chirped a painfully cheery voice, laced thickly with the Tevinter accent.  She spun and saw an older woman, perhaps a decade beyond her, with light blonde curls and a wide, white grin.  Briefly, Hawke wondered if the curls were natural.

She set her jaw and shook that capricious thought loose, reminding herself that sometimes beautiful flowers can be the most poisonous.  “Who are you?” Hawke demanded quickly, sickly feeling that it was incredibly foolish to have returned here.  She should have incapacitated Tobias and ran with the boy when she had the chance.

The woman took a few, cautious steps forward over the beautiful marble floor.  “Damas, if you would calm yourself…”

“Where is Varania’s son?”  She growled before she stalked toward the woman with no little mayhem on her mind, “And where are my damned clothes?!”

“Your clothes were filthy, serah, blood and sweat all over them,” the woman pleaded softly as she took several steps back with her palms raised in weak surrender.  “We took them to be cleaned.  The Imperial Divine ensured you’d have clothing in the meantime.”  She gestured to a neat pile of pastel clothing resting benignly beneath a white flower at the foot of the bed she’d just fled. “We’re fairly monochromatic here but we found something bright in our storerooms.  If the colors are not to your liking, I can send to the market for others.  The Divine has stated that he wants you to feel comfortable.  And your sweet Owen is in the courtyard.”

“Owen?” she asked stupidly.

The sister cocked her head curiously.  “He’s the boy you brought here last night- the elf, damas.  He was quite taken with the cosmos blossoms.”  She smiled benignly and gestured to flower resting on her intended clothing and added, “He picked that one specially for you.  I think he’s been eager for you to wake- speaks to no one other than Lothri.”

With an infinite resignation, she reached down and plucked up the single flower resting over her intended garments and examined it.  It was a simple, beautiful thing, white with bright red peppering the edges that reminded her suddenly of an innocence poisoned with blood- a fitting tribute to the circumstances that had brought this child into her care.  While it likely wasn’t a deliberate symbol, it remained a meaningful one nevertheless _._

She took a few deep breaths and felt her pulse begin to slow back into its normal pace.  This Owen was safe with Lothri.  The boy faced no impending peril and she could regard her foes as once more as equals.  “I want to see him,” she whispered.

“Of course,” the sister responded kindly.  “Once you’ve dressed I’ll take you directly to him.  He likely shouldn’t see you traipsing about in a nightgown.”

Hawke nodded her assent before turning her back to strip off the light sleepwear she’d been provided with.  Donning the robes, she found them unacceptably peach and frilly.  The robes themselves were a simple reinforced gossamer peppered with accents of blue and purple.  There were slits going up the skirt that would permit movement and still preserve a bit of her modesty, which was fortunate since whoever fashioned this garment decided the low-cut bosom and the gapes in the fabric that exposed her arms and shoulders would compromise it adequately enough. This was not a garment for a warrior or a mage, it was a garment better suited for an elaborate interpretive dancer. 

Her completely discontent, affronted gaze captured the attention of her handler, who murmured that she would head to the market to look for something more suitable before leading her to the courtyard and making her quick escape, leaving the once revered Champion of Kirkwall trussed up as little more than a beautiful, stuffed hen.  Everything shifted like an unwieldy ocean of fabric beneath her as she stumbled out of the dormitory and into the courtyard.

But when the late afternoon sunshine- apparently it was much later than she’d thought- hit her face and the warm, dry air blasted over her as the sun gifted its fierce kiss, she began to see the practicality of wearing something so utterly revealing in the North.  Her slaver’s garb of oppressive buckles and overly heavy leather left her feeling unbearably hot but she’d forced herself to power through it.  As much as she hated to admit it, the act of stripping that hated armor off her body the night prior brought her a level of relief completely unrelated to the cool breeze chilling the sweat on her body.  The feelings that accompanied Rajun’s present had hung over her, all guilt and hot, heavy leather and she’d been eager to rid herself of it.

This on the other hand was the closest she’d ever felt to strutting about naked in public and she had to admit that it felt incredible in the face of Tevinter’s wretched heat.  Its _winter_ heat, she noted ruefully, this is Tevinter’s version of winter.  Summer must have felt like jumping directly into a furnace.

She entered the courtyard and was momentarily dumbstruck by the scenery.  A world away in Ferelden snow would have already smothered the earth from the sun and the fields would drowse, silent and frozen, until spring; here the Black Chantry’s garden was simply breathtaking.  Flowers that had no right to spring forth in winter happily blossomed around her. Then she saw Lothri crouched before Owen, who sat uninspired by the magnificent setting and staring dolefully at the green grass.  Lothri caught sight of her, bowing his head sadly for a moment. 

Good, someone had informed him about Varania already.  Thank the Maker that responsibility wouldn’t fall on her as well. 

With a solid pat on the young elf’s head, Lothri crossed over.  “He heared everything,” he whispered.  “He know.”

Bowing her head, she dared to ask, “Is he your son?” 

It was a logical conclusion; even though Lothri did not mention the boy in his desperate plea for her assistance, he displayed a steadfast and unshakable devotion to Varania that was more than simple friendship.  While she wholly understood that Owen might in fact be better off with his father, she couldn’t discount the idea that Owen was a motherless elf in Tevinter living under the imminent threat of enslavement nor Varania’s plea that she take him to Fenris.

Lothri, however, alleviated a few of her concerns when he shook his head quickly.  “No, I never knowed Owen’s father.  Danarius kill him.  I keep Varania.”  He reached out and grasped her hands, pleading for her understanding with the simple words, “Varania was a good woman.”

A heavy sigh escaped her as her thoughts flittered once more to the dead woman shackled to her kitchen table, a widow raising a baby on her own, bartering her flesh to pay the slavers’ blackmail while she and her son lived in what most would consider sub-poverty beneath the city of Minrathous itself.  Hawke buried her face in her hands for a moment.  Why the Blight hadn’t she just asked for help? 

She met Lothri’s eyes before lowering her gaze once more.  It didn’t matter that she’d eventually gone to help, what mattered was that she just like so many others, had turned away from the distressed mother- passers-by, Tevinters, clients at the brothel.  Varania existed only when something was needed of her and dissipated into the ether the moment those needs had been satisfied.  Hawke’s burning question unexpectedly answered itself with one of its own kind.  Why hadn’t she asked for help?  Maker, why _would_ she?

She shook her head as she tried to pick out a single blade of grass on the immaculate turf, whispering dumbly, “I tried to save her,” when she couldn’t find one.

“I know,” Lothri admitted gently, taking her bare shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze.  “Varania was afraid.”

“I wanted to help her.”  She cursed the quavering in her voice, futilely trying to force back those watery notes as she insisted, “I would have helped her if she’d only asked me.”

“You take Owen from Tevinter.”  His voice cracked and he dissolved into tears, falling forward into her and burying his face into her neck.  “Please take him.”

Her eyes were starting to water, damn it all, as she fervently insisted, “I can take you too, Lothri.  We can go together.”

He pushed himself away from her, struggling for his composure as he absently wiped his nose.  “Sorry.  This day is… very hard.”  He sighed and nodded to himself several times as though reassuring himself that somehow, one day this nightmare would fade.  Meeting her gaze again, he answered, “I have sons.  He need me.  Promise you take Owen.”

“I will,” she assured him with a gentle squeeze of his lithe hands.

“I stay here with him until you go.  He know me a little.”  

“What will you do?” she asked quietly.

“I protect my sons.  Like Varania.  Like you protect Owen.”  He offered his arm in a gentlemanly fashion.  She took it as he led her to the stone bench that Owen sat upon, feet dangling well above the ground and kicking into the air absently.

She hadn’t gotten a good look at him the night before, so much had been going on and it had been so dark, but now she finally had the opportunity to really look at Owen.  He had the same startling green eyes, red rimmed and bloodshot from crying, as Fenris and Varania shared but his fair coloring must have come exclusively from his own parents.  His hair was a shock of dark brown against his pale skin and so thick it nearly obscured the length of his ears; the urge to reach out and touch it was hard to resist.  With the exception of his dark hair, Owen was undeniably the spitting image of his dead mother.

Crouching before him in a mimicry of the very position she’d assumed when she abducted him, she waited several minutes for him to acknowledge her before realizing she’d have to make the first move.  Dozens of questions leaped to her tongue as she wondered where on earth she should even begin.  Names, she decided.  It would probably be best if they at least introduced themselves.

“So… you’re Owen?” she asked with a gentle point, feeling already like this conversation had hit some base level she’d never considered before.  He looked up at her with impossibly huge green eyes before he nodded slowly.  Gesturing to herself, she smiled,  “I’m Marian, Marian Hawke.  You may call me Marian if you would like.”

“Marian,” he hesitantly parroted back.  Although his youthful tongue saw the R pronounced a bit softly, she still felt this was good progress.

She nodded her approval and continued, “I’m going to be taking care of you for a while.”

Owen looked at her strangely as the words failed to register as anything coherent or meaningful.  Hawke swallowed her frustration.  Her experience with children was minimal to start- the occasional colicky baby, flus and measles and the like- she was used to seeing children that shared a common tongue with her when they were at their most ill.  She had no idea exactly what a perfectly healthy human boy should act like and elven children were even rarer in the Darktown clinic, their parents usually preferring to seek treatment within the Alienage.  This was shaping up to be quite the undertaking.  If Lothri could be convinced to accompany them, she’d at least have a translator of sorts but he had his own obligations in Minrathous and she didn’t see him as the type that would abandon them.

Lothri murmured something to the boy and he nodded, replying softly.  “He hungry,” the elf translated, groaning for a second as he struggled to shift the words from Arcanum into Common.  “Will you… come with to go get food?”

She smiled at the clumsy sentence and replied to the boy, “Of course I’ll have some food with you.  I haven’t yet had breakfast myself.”  At Owen’s curious stare, she simplified the sentence.  “Yes.  We will eat together,” she amended with a nod and the appropriate accompanying hand gestures.

A sister approached then, thankfully not the one she’d been so rude to earlier, and introduced herself as Ereis before she led the three to a small kitchen where she began haphazardly banging a few pots together.  Hawke dismissed the woman summarily and invited her to sit as well, deciding that if she were going to be the boy’s guardian now was as good a time as any to start.  “Is there anything you dislike eating, Owen?” she asked as she took a quick assessment of the larder. 

Lothri’s translation and the boy’s subsequent response earned a small shriek from Ereis.  “He no like… ahhh, what is word?”

“Rat,” Ereis answered with a shudder.  “He does not like eating rat.”

“Rat?” Marian answered with no little revulsion, unable to suppress the disgusted “Ewwww,” that followed. 

She’d eaten rat only a few times during those first hungry, sweaty days in Kirkwall, mostly as an act of solidarity for her family and Aveline before Gamlen found them- personally she found starvation to be quite preferable and found the meat foul and chewy in all the places it wasn’t cold and greasy.  Carver had quipped that it tasted a bit like chicken and she verbally agreed even though her stomach threatened to eject it with every movement she made.  There was no telling if he’d been uncharacteristically affecting an artificial cheerfulness to bolster Mother’s morale or if he’d found the vermin to be genuinely tasty… she’d regretfully never asked for his actual thoughts on the subject but none of them ever ate the meat again, which figured that was indicator enough.

“Rat.  Ewwwww,” the boy repeated in a serious emphasis.  It was more inflection than she’d heard him produce thus far.  At least they had something they could agree upon- slavers were bad, Minrathous was terrible, and eating rat was disgusting.

“No rat,” she told the boy with a great shake of her head.  Nothing could suppress the twinge of victory when the boy mimicked her in serious agreement.  “I can work with that.”

She quickly familiarized herself with the kitchen as Lothri and Owen chatted quietly while Ereis, having a higher mastery of Common, translated any questions Owen might have for her.  He asked a few innocuous questions, where she was from, if she liked oranges, what was her favorite color, but deliberately avoided anything serious while she busied herself with chopping a few vegetables before throwing them unceremoniously into a pan.  Throughout it all, she was very aware of Owen’s careful gaze tracking her movement even while he spoke with Lothri.

She met his stare a few times and he’d dart his eyes elsewhere as though he was unsure how he felt about being noticed by her.  As soon as she looked away, however, she felt his eyes boring into her again.  It was curious the way he struggled to avoid eye contact with her or Ereis but distrust of humans, she figured, was something that he’d learned.  It made sense, given his exposure to them must have been limited to slavers and his mother’s clients.  Apparently, Owen was also uncertain about this path he was set to go down.  It was a new thing they had in common, she decided as she checked the doneness of the chicken and found it to be satisfactory.

No one had ever accused her of being a master chef; in fact she actually managed to cultivate a rather notorious reputation with her friends in Kirkwall for being extremely inept at it after her first disastrous attempt at cooking over a campfire.  In her defense the meat had _looked_ done but that, sadly, was the only similarity it held to edible food. She was so tickled at the unexpected boon of being asked to _never_ cook again that she just never bothered to inform them that she wasn’t a complete catastrophe in a proper kitchen.

This, fortunately, was a proper kitchen and a well-stocked one to boot so it took a blessedly short amount of time to craft a late lunch for the group of them.  Owen ate with such voracity that Hawke was certain he hadn’t tasted even a bite of it.  Lothri’s attempts to slow him fell on suddenly deaf ears.  Maker, it was like he’d never had a decent meal before.  For all that she’d seen of Varania’s pantry that very well could have been the case.  Elves were usually quite lithe to start but she was starting to suspect the boy was a little thinner than he should have been.

As it stood, given the rate Owen had inhaled his food, Hawke weighed the odds of the boy vomiting in the next ten minutes but before the healer in her could get too concerned Ereis interrupted the post-meal quiet.  “The Divine would like to meet with you today whenever you have the chance.  He understands these circumstances might have you a bit preoccupied.”

“Go,” Lothri assured her before she could think to argue.  “We be fine.  I watch.”

Armed with that small assurance, she allowed Ereis to lead her from the kitchen, through the opulent chapel, and then finally to the huge guarded door that would lead her into the Spire.  The sister’s task completed, she gestured the mage ahead and one of the Templars opened the heavy door to permit her entrance, flanking her as she made her way within.  Taking a deep breath, she began ascending the steep, winding staircase that would lead her into Aurelius’ office.  The presence of her escort discouraged the notion of exploring the various doorways that peppered the path… but Maker it was tempting.

Once they reached the office at the top of the Spire, the Templar gestured her inside and stood sentry on the other side of the door.  Apparently, she still wasn’t entirely trusted- no small shock there.  It would have been madness if the Imperial Divine had somehow decided that she was completely trustworthy given everything he knew about her.  Aurelius sat at his desk, a pair of spectacles perched carefully upon his small nose and an elegant quill scribbling furiously over numerous pieces of parchment. 

For several moments, he gave no acknowledgement of her presence other than a quick, “Take a seat, I’ll be with you shortly.”

As she seated herself she noticed that the office was cooler than reason dictated it should have been.  It was slightly disconcerting considering how blasted hot she knew it was outside, Tevinter’s winter warmth easily dwarfing Kirkwall’s midsummer heat which had left her all but melted.  There must have been some magic at play to create this sort of comfortable environment.  Before she could dwell much more on it, the Imperial Divine gave a sort hum and placed his quill into an inkwell.

“Would you like some tea?” he asked finally, removing his spectacles with a tired rubbing of his eyes.  He was already rising to busy himself with a small kettle before she could reply.

She did not know where to begin.  The Charta Maleficai, Owen, her father- they were all things she wanted to address- but she when she thought back on last night, she found there was one question she felt a more urgent need to address.  “Tobias is no priest,” she declared quietly to the Imperial Divine. 

“You are correct,” he admitted.  “Tobias is one of our scholars.”

“Hmmm, I didn’t think the proper techniques for breaking someone’s neck was something you people had a need to study,” she mused suspiciously, wondering not for the first time what sort of lot she had fallen with.

“He had that particular skill set when he came to us,” he chuckled as he measured out the leaves and set them into two delicate teacups.  “I know already what happened with the slaver last night.  As I’m sure you noticed it can be extremely helpful when he is threatened.”

“James was not threatening Tobias,” she replied.  While she was by no means upset by his death, she was still more than a little disturbed by the scholar’s cold-blooded execution, especially its effect on Owen; the boy had experienced enough death.

“No, this James was threatening you and the small child clutched in your arms.  I gave Tobias orders to protect you, which is exactly what he did.”  Aurelius brought the kettle and held it before her.  “Would you mind?  Seems rude to send Chora all the way down to the kitchens.”

“You didn’t see it,” Hawke asserted before tapping her finger once against the copper.  The small blast of heat she pushed into it set it to an immediate low whistling.  “There was nothing behind him.  It wasn’t even brutal.”  She struggled with her words for a moment, strange considering how articulate she usually was.  “He was just… empty.”

“Empty, perhaps- there is a raging debate on that very subject spreading through the various philosophers’ guilds,” Aurelius replied before turning to pour the steaming water into the empty cups and set the kettle on a decorative trivet.  “I’ve never seen him kill before but am unsurprised you found his reaction to be rather dispassionate,” he continued over his shoulder.  “You must know that Tranquils have no ability to feel empathy.  It is my understanding they are fairly common outside of Tevinter, surely you’ve seen them before.”

Her jaw dropped as she took in his words.  “Do you mean to say he’s a _Tranquil_?”

Tobias seemed to have nothing but a sort of cold, unapologetic logic encompassing him, accompanied by his strangely unnatural cadence to his speech… she’d attributed it to his usage of the foreign tongue but if what the Black Divine was saying was the truth then the cause was much deeper.  The singular focus she’d noticed from him, the odd detachment at Varania’s murder, and his cold reason when it came to her abduction of Owen- it all made a little more sense now.

“Indeed.”  Aurelius brought the small tea tray over and set it upon his desk before assuming a seat beside her, forgoing his oppressive desk to shrug off his authority and regard her as a friend.

“Pardon me for saying that he doesn’t appear to be very good at it.”  She shook her head in wonder.  Tobias had been a mage- that made a small part of her heart ache for him.  Like Anders, she considered the Rite of Tranquility to be nothing short of a death sentence.  So that meant the man who had assisted her last night was a walking corpse, albeit an entirely different one than that which had replaced her friend and mentor.

“Tobias displays minor affectations and tone in his voice because he understands that the typical Tranquil flatness makes others uncomfortable,” Aurelius explained patiently, seeming to understand this was a great deal to process.  “He has deliberately chosen to alter the cadence of his speech- and if I may say has done a remarkable job of it.” 

“Can they even _do_ that?” she asked in no little amount of confusion.

Aurelius shrugged and took one of the cups, lifting the steeping leaves from the drink and setting them into a small bowl before passing the saucer to her.  “I’ve heard of them feigning laughter and sexual arousal at the behest of their handlers.  There was even one in Val Royeaux several decades ago that starred in the opera as a soprano unmatched in either skill or discipline- it was the only way she would have been permitted to continue performing.  Tranquils displaying even the slightest amount of autonomy are incredibly rare- there is little doubt of that- but it is not unheard of

“What I mean to say is that Tobias is undeniably unique but not nearly so odd as you would think.  But that is not why I asked you here.”  He removed the steeper from his own cup and took a gentle sip, focusing on it as he asked, “What I need to know, Marian, is what madness makes you think you want the Charta Maleficai?”

Madness.  There was that word again.

This discussion was bound to happen sooner or later; she just hadn’t been expecting it so abruptly after the rather startling revelation about Tobias.  Then again, the sooner she got her hands on the book, the sooner she could take Owen and be gone from Minrathous and all its strange perversions permanently.  “I imagine you have heard about what happened in Kirkwall- what happened to the Chantry there,” she began hesitantly.

Aurelius took another sip and settled more deeply in the lush chair next to her and gave her a guileless yet rueful smile.  “I daresay all of Thedas has.  You yourself stand accused of assisting in it.”

“I didn’t _know_.  I didn’t know what he was planning,” she groaned and took to her feet.  The urge to pace overwhelmed her as she roughly set her teacup down and commenced to stalking the office like a caged animal.  “The apostate who did it, Anders, was possessed by a spirit calling itself Justice,” she continued rapidly, afraid that a stilled tongue would falter and stall.  “I helped him gather the materials he used to create the bomb.  He said he needed them for a ritual that could separate them.”  She felt a spasm in her throat but choked it back down with a quick sip of her tea, so hot she could barely taste it.  “I apprenticed with him; he taught me everything I know about healing.  I… I trusted him.”

She leaned over the desk and stared into her cup, captivated momentarily by the white cranes and cherry blossoms etched into the porcelain, watching the remnants of tea leaves leave a dark swirl along the bottom.  Dimly, the Divine’s released sigh reached her ears along with the sad words, “Your trust was misplaced.  There is no such ritual, Marian.”

“I know that now.  But before I fled Kirkwall, I raided his clinic and took everything he’d been studying.  One of his books _was_ actually about demon theory- I think he genuinely wanted to be free of Justice and was trying to make sense of everything that was happening to him.  He kept circling references to the Charta Maleficai- and made notes that if there was a cure so to speak, he could find it there.”

“At this point I think the best solution would be his death.  I am truly sorry.”

“I came to that conclusion as well.”  She shut her eyes and bowed her head before finally daring to speak the three words she’d never before had the ability to say aloud.  “I killed him.”

“I am sorry that task fell on you,” Aurelius murmured before continuing, “but I am relieved the rumors…”

She cut him off.  “It didn’t work.  It did not stop him…”  She tried to say more but could only manage a strange choking sound as she tried to force the words around the lump in her throat.

Aurelius rose and hastened to his cabinet again, the same he’d produced the Aggregio from, and selected a smallish, clear bottle from its contents.  Returning, he uncorked it and tipped its contents into her cup before adding a bit to his own.  As if understanding his inherent mistrust, he took the first drink to demonstrate that it wasn’t any sort of poison.  With his concession, she threw caution to the wind and took a small sip as well, immediately recognizing the tincture as a calming drought, which evidenced its presence with its light licorice flavor clashing against the flavor if the drink and its near-instant balm on her jangled nerves. 

Secure in the knowledge that this wasn’t anything harmful, she downed the rest of her cocktail in a few deep swallows and waited a few moments for the potion to take its effect.  Sure enough she felt her nerves ease within a few minutes.  Fortunately he hadn’t given her enough to have the less pleasant side effects of dizziness and inertia.   

“Perhaps you should start at the beginning,” Aurelius prompted after several moments of silence.

Bracing herself, she explained what had been happening- the constant running, the cells they’d lost to Anders, her brother’s encounter with Enid, the cities she fled from chased by the Templars seeking to imprison her, the Wanted posters she couldn’t even get close enough to deface, the ever climbing bounties on her and Carver’s heads- so high that any display of trust had to have at least one accompanying escape route.  The Imperial Divine said nothing during her heavy pregnant pauses, understanding that her disjointed, stumbling speech was the first time she’d ever spoken so candidly about the trials she’d endured since Kirkwall’s Chantry exploded into blazing brimstone and rubble.   

She left out her encounter with Gerard Maison.  It was too soon for that.  It was… the wound, though no longer bleeding was still too deep, too fresh, to expose.

“My brother and I figured if anything could expel Justice from his corpse and kill it once and for all, the Charta Maleficai would tell us,” she finished with a heavy sigh as she collapsed back into her chair, feeling like some huge weight had finally been lifted from her.

Aurelius’ face took on an expression of deep pensiveness before he took another sip of his tea and asked, “What do you know about the book exactly?”

“That it’s the most complete study of demonology in existence.  And that it’s kept in the Imperial Chantry,” she answered simply.

“It did not strike you as strange that such a text was kept under guard here rather than in the Circle of Mages?”

“We did find that a bit odd,” she admitted lamely.

The Black Divine sat back in his chair, looking unusually old for a moment as he silently considered his next words.  “That text came into existence as the creation of a cult that scourged the Imperium centuries ago.  They held the belief that demons and spirits were the Maker’s true children and that it was a mage’s responsibility to host them.  They did not observe demons, Marian- they worshipped them; and the Charta Maleficai was not a study- it was their scripture.

“The result was a tome written in the blood of sacrificed children so riddled with evil it can corrupt the very soul of anyone foolish enough to even open it.  It was decided by the Archon Nomaran that it was too dangerous for mages to have access, which was why the Chantry endorsed him and why it is kept under guard here to this day.”

“So I’ve come here for nothing.”  Everything she’d suffered, Wycome, the slavers, Tevinter, Varania’s betrayal… it had been a pointless, unsuccessful quest for a book that would give them no answers.

“I did not say that,” Aurelius interrupted her doleful unspoken monologue.  “There is someone here who has read it; someone whose spirit cannot be corrupted and who cannot be possessed.  You’ve just complained about him in fact.”

“Tobias?”

“The one and the same,”   He functions within the Chantry as a scholar of forbidden texts.  I cannot grant you access to the Charta, Hawke, but if there is any information within that could assist you, Tobias would know it.”

“How could you place a _Tranquil_ in such a position?” she spat, reeling at the implications of all he’d just said.  “He cannot advocate for himself.  He cannot say no…”

“Quite the contrary actually.  After he underwent the Rite nine years ago he arrived here and asked to do it.  We verified the Rite had been performed with the Antivan Chantry and conducted a few tests of our own to ensure that the Tranquility took.  Once that was assured, we welcomed him into his desired post.  If it reeks of evil, Hawke, he’s the expert to consult,” he finished.

“Why would he _choose_ to study that?”

Aurelius pondered that question for a moment before tapping his chin and replying, “That is his story to tell.  But I assure you that when I asked him that very question, his answer more than satisfied me.”

She thought back to the man she’d seen last night wrenching James’ neck, harboring more than a few dark suspicions that Tobias’ story could be as terrible as it was interesting.  The man had to be at least in his forties and if the Rite had been performed a scant decade ago that meant he likely had a lengthy history as an apostate before being faced with a Harrowing.  If he chose Tranquility over a Harrowing…

“When can I speak with him?” she inquired.

“After I’ve briefed him on what you hope to find.  He is not permitted to speak about the contents of the Charta Maleficai without my approval,” Aurelius replied before rising from his seat and shuffling back over to his desk to rustle through the papers he’d moments before been signing.

Seeing as the conversation was finished, she rose from her seat as well.  “Are we done here?”

“There is one more thing,” he interrupted her exit as he selected one of the papers he’d been reading and scrutinized it.  “Marian, I’ve had some of my scribes do a bit of research and it appears there is a way for you to legally take the boy Owen out of Tevinter.”

Excitement and hope bubbled inside her.  Perhaps she could be out of this blasted country even sooner than she’d anticipated.  She took a deep breath to calm herself- it was foolish to get overexcited before she knew the details.  “How?” she asked coolly instead, grateful for the blasé air she’d managed to affect.

“There’s a little known statute in Imperial law that permits…” he paused, weighing his words heavily as though he understood he was about to gravely offend her.  “It’s called ‘adverse possession.’  It means the Senate and the Chantry may seize private property and appropriate it for our own use in times of trouble.  It was used heavily by us when we broke off from the Southern Chantry and during the slave Andraste’s conquest but hasn’t seen much use in recent past.”

This confused her as she tried to wrap her mind around how something like that stood to help her.  “I apologize but I don’t quite understand what you’re getting at.”  Did he mean to seize a few weapons so she could battle her way out of the city or was there some other method he was considering? 

Aurelius took a deep breath.  “Marian, as a slave Owen is technically property of the Danarius family.  With the Archon’s approval, I can take possession of him and turn him over to you.”

She stifled down her deep hatred of the idea that slavery could reduce anyone to the same status she’d have given a table, that the orphaned elf she was protecting hadn’t been abducted but rather stolen, and ground out, “And I can free him?”

He shook his head.  “No, the law was written to specifically disallow that.  But you’d be, temporarily at least, his designated minder.  It is the best we can do.”

“And how long is ‘temporarily?’” she glowered suspiciously.

“Perhaps only long enough to get him out of the Imperium.  If we wage a good enough argument with the Archon, perhaps you could control his ownership indefinitely.”  He rubbed his eyes again, leaving Hawke to wonder if the man had slept at all since she’d seen him last.  “There is another catch, I fear.”

“Of course there is,” she groused and waited for the other shoe to drop.

“You’ll need to join the ranks of the Imperial Chantry in order for me to assign his ownership to you.”  His blunt response inspired a flurry of fury within her.

“Join… you want me to join the Black Chantry?”  She balked and rose from her seat, “Are you mad?  You think I don’t have enough crimes on my head?  Now you want me to commit more treason against the Chantry?  You want to give them another reason to see me hanged?”

“Think about it,” he calmly reasoned with her from his seat, “You’ve already been educated in several of the tenants of our religion.  You’d have status that would see your travel through Tevinter and back into the Free Marches much easier.  You’d also gain a small degree of protection that Imperial mages depend on when traveling as dignitaries outside Tevinter- not that any are foolish enough to try it with the Southern Chantry’s current position on mages.  This would be a wise move for you to make.”

She couldn’t fault his logic.  Templars historically did not interfere with the goings-on of Imperial mages.  Circumstances with the war had doubtless changed that but if it gave any pursuers even a moment’s pause, it stood to help her greatly.  Additionally, she’d be free to travel south through the Imperium rather than taking a ship halfway across the world and then trekking north through extremely unfriendly territory.  “And exactly what rank did you have in mind?”

“I can appoint you as a Templar Cleric, a mage within the Templars.  The duties are mostly seeking out blood mages and rooting out corruption within the Templar ranks; you’d be spared the ministry aspects of it that way.  The uniform is quite fetching and you’d gain access to a number of tools restricted to the Templar Clerics.”

The mention of tools intrigued her- usually she wielded nothing more than her staff and her intellect.  Tevinter was bound to have a few items that a mage could find useful.  With that in mind she asked, “And what would I have to do?”

“Normally, it involves several years of dedication and study.  In your case, however, I am willing to forego such requirements on the condition that you promise not to conduct yourself in a manner that would reflect poorly on us,” he explained before tacking on, “Publicly at least.”

“Meaning?”

“Keep your head down, avoid identifying your status to the Southern Chantry if possible- we will keep it quiet on this end as well- and if you see blood magic you should attempt to stop it.”  A gentle shrug punctuated that point quite nicely before he finished, “If you promise to do that, if you promise not to blacken our eyes, I can have you initiated in a matter of days.”

“Then I can take Owen.”

“Then we meet with the Archon and petition for him.”  Aurelius turned and leaned nonchalantly against his desk as he considered the papers again.  “Hawke, little as you like it this is the best way.  If I can take possession of Owen, it would keep the slavers at bay so long as you minded him.”

“Could you not simply _buy_ him?” The words alone made her stomach feel slightly queasy.  She was more than a little disgusted with even the thought of purchasing a slave- vocalizing that idea left her doubly so- but it was the only option she had that wouldn’t involve pledging her allegiance to Tevinter or abducting the boy with a hoard of slavers pursuing them.  “Wouldn’t that be easier?”

Aurelius shook his head again.  “All members of the Chantry are forbidden from owning or purchasing slaves, myself included.  If you chose that route, you would have broker that deal on your own.  His youth makes him an expensive purchase and given your participation in the elder Danarius’ death, it is extremely unlikely that the remaining members of his estate would sell him to you.”  Aurelius strode to her and placed his arms on her shoulders.  “You may not like it but this is the only way I can guarantee his safety.”

She didn’t like it- didn’t like it one bit- but Aurelius was trying to help her and Owen.  Little as the method pleased her, however, she knew she could not hope to win the game without debasing herself enough to play it.  Otherwise, she could count on more slavers dogging her course and she’d be a criminal in the entirety of Thedas instead of just most of it.

But joining the Black Chantry?  She couldn’t even begin to consider the massive ramifications of allying herself with Tevinter even in secret.  Carver would be furious if he ever found out.  She would no longer be an innocent dupe as far as the Chantry was concerned; she’d be marked as an apostate of the worst sort.

  
Her options, however, were beyond limited; the mysterious aforementioned tools could also stand to benefit her and if the axe cut too near her head she’d have a sanctuary where she could flee.  And Owen would be protected if only for now. 

“All right,” she muttered grudgingly up at Aurelius.  “I’m in.”

* * *

With Aurelius’ expediting of the proceedings, it took a mere three days for her to be inducted.  The initiation ritual was entirely in Arcanum, and her designated responses were sounded out syllable by painstaking syllable which she mimicked poorly, drawing a choir of chortles from the men she now supposed were now her spiritual brothers.  They weren’t the first brothers she had difficulty talking to.

She’s spent most of her time with the other Clerics showing her the ropes of what she’d tangled herself up in.  It was on the fourth night- after yet another painful session with the Cleric Pretus demonstrating to her the devices now in her toolkit- that she finally had the chance to breathe again.  Most of them were fairly easy to use but the lyrium rods thwarted nearly every attempt to master them.  She’d electrocuted herself no fewer than four times but fortunately only set fire to her robes once.  It was progress albeit a very slow and extremely painful one.

She stripped and changed into her nightclothes, wincing as she caught a glance of the burns that expanded from the point of impact and crisscrossed and fanned out like icy leaves, arcing agonizing branches over the length her left arm, up her neck, and fanning out along the left side of her torso.  Beautiful as they looked, they were torture to touch and as helpful as lightning was, she found she very much preferred being on the giving rather than the receiving end of it.  A quick healing spell saw the aching redness reduced to a pale pink.  Hopefully they’d fade by morning if not, she’d have a new distinguishing mark.  Oh joy.

She checked to assure Owen was sleeping- she’d barely seen him outside of meals the last few days- before she busied herself with the unenviable task of resuming her correspondence.  She hadn’t been able to really communicate with anyone since her disastrous meeting with Fenris.  Isabela had sworn she’d see her brother updated on her whereabouts but Carver was doubtless miffed that she’d gone ahead with the plan to locate the Charta Maleficai without further consulting him.  It wasn’t like she was overly involved in the camps at present.  After Anders made himself known, her responsibilities had been largely relegated to finding running apostates and finding more Templar allies.  Carver had made it abundantly clear that she was not to engage Anders at any cost and while she was loath to take orders, she’d agreed it was the best course until they knew more about what had happened… and that depended on steady stream of letters between the various camps.

The first note, to her brother, seemed easy enough- _How are you?  How’s the war?  Minrathous is terrible.  I ate a delicious orange!_ – when her heart sunk as she realized that Carver needed to be warned against Gerard Maison… or at least needed to be made aware that there were men like him creeping through the shadows.  There were dozens of unknown aspects to the mystery of the man.  Was he working for the Chantry?  Perhaps Maison and his band of thugs had acted alone, but the point remained that it was simply another riddle to her and one that she needed to solve immediately. 

Regardless, this wasn’t something best told in a letter, she reasoned as she scribbled a short post-script warning Carver not to trust any Templars hailing from Wycome.  All written correspondence had to be as vague and brusque as possible.  Their lines of communication were untraditional and therefore fairly secure but any number of accidents could happen between Minrathous and the Free Marches.  The rebellion couldn’t risk showing its hand in this game.  There was far too much at stake.

The next letter was substantially easier, professional even.  Just four words- _We need to meet_.  No name was necessary- she and Zevran had communicated only a scant bit since her expulsion from Kirkwall but their handwriting was familiar enough.  The assassin, dubious as he was, had a debt and enough sense of honor to thusly offer his assistance.  Isabela’s fervent vouching for him made him slightly more trustworthy than any other mercenaries or the Antivan Crows.  In her current position, she needed every ally she could get and someone with his talents could certainly help her track down Maison. 

She needed to end this, she thought as she shot a glance back to the bed where Owen dozed.  Maison would not take him.  She would not let what happened to Delia or the others happen to him.  The boy’s wellbeing was her responsibility even if that meant traversing into the shadier realms of her moral center.  She needed every advantage she could get and a professional killer could tilt the scales in her favor or throw the whole setup entirely off-balance.  Time was the only way she’d know for certain.

And finally, she found herself facing down a blank parchment; the very paper that would eventually house the words she intended for Fenris.  Now more than ever, her retreat left her feeling guilty even though logic dictated it had been the best course of action.  But it hadn’t been logic that drove her out of his bed and into the snow- it was panic.  She suspected that was why she couldn’t shake this strange feeling that she’d wronged the man who’d battled then bedded her.

That dank, acid emotion paralyzed her hand and the words refused to come forth; so she screwed up her courage and began writing anyways, hoping the right words would come forth. 

* * *

  _Fenris,_

_Provided you are not blazingly furious at me for running_

* * *

 She scowled, crumbling the paper and tossing it into the wastebasket.  That opening was an admission of guilt and that word, _running_ , despite being extremely accurate also displayed weakness.  It simply would not do to begin this delicate correspondence from a disadvantage.  So far as she knew, Fenris was still an enemy and that night had meant nothing other than a quick lay and a botched capture.

Still, she mused at the memory, it hadn’t been exactly _quick_ had it?  The thought of that cold night, of his body moving over her, moving in her, sent a pang of arousal through her, which she inefficiently quashed down.  Now was hardly the time for it but even as she squirmed slightly in her seat, she found herself regretting that she’d left, foolish as it would have been to stay.

Her sharpest regret, however, was that she had failed to inform the elf about the precarious situation that loomed over his new home in Starkhaven.  That, she knew when she’d arranged their meeting, was too sensitive to be disclosed in print.  She’d just been so flummoxed by her extremely alive paramour’s sudden reappearance that she’d forsaken the one mission she’d gone specifically to do, her one priority mission for the last six months- get allies.  Selecting another sheet of paper, she hastily scrawled another missive.

* * *

  _Fenris,_

_We need to talk.  I will arrange a meeting once I’ve returned._

_I hope you are well._

_-M_

* * *

She scrutinized the ink, praying that her disquiet wasn’t evidenced somehow in her penmanship.  It was efficient, effective- like him- peppered with the politeness her years as Kirkwall’s Champion had demanded of her.  Satisfied she hadn’t gushed her heart out over the paper, she replaced the quill in the inkwell and decided it would have to do.  She didn’t know what to say to Fenris.  It was something she’d have to figure out during the long trip back.  Hopefully somewhere between Minrathous and Starkhaven she’d find the right words.

Owen mumbled something in his sleep and began tossing violently.  A nightmare, she realized much to her dismay.  It wouldn’t be his last one- not if he listened to those savages defile and murder his mother.  Depositing the final letter into it’s holster and scribbling his name across the front, she took the candle and set it on the table next to Owen’s bed before taking a seat upon his bed and gently nudging the boy into waking.

He startled awake, jolting up and staring wide-eyed into the darkness before settling his gaze on her.  Then the expected tears came as he doubtless realized it hadn’t been a nightmare, that his mother was dead, that he was stuck with a complete stranger, that his world as it was had been irreparably shattered and replaced with something entirely alien.

Inexplicably, he reached for her and she embraced him, hefting him up as she situated him upon her lap.  She made no attempt to shush his sobbing, knowing his tears were poison that needed to come out.  She instead stroked his hair until he cried himself back into a fitful sleep that would bring him no rest.  He murmured something soft and foreign as he settled back into the cusp of the Fade.  Lacking a greater inclination to move away, she simply waited where she sat, smoothing her hand over the boy’s hair until his breathing evened out and his eyes began fluttering as he entered a deeper slumber.

What was she supposed to do with him?

She had no idea how much time had passed but supposed it had been a fair amount, an assumption that was backed up by the candle having lost a significant amount of length. With that thought still reverberating an endless echo inside her head, she eased him back into his bed gently so as not to disturb him and rose to return to the desk.  

_You’ll protect him._

It was an abrupt, gentle thing.  She started when she heard it blowing against her mind in a soft, warm breeze.  He’d been conspicuously absent since the night she went- and subsequently failed- to rescue Varania.  Hope was harbored that whatever Hoppers was had found her lacking and decided to leave her for good.  She stumbled and faced the dark, letting the temporary sensory deprivation center her in the junction between her mind and the Fade as she steeled herself, parting the Veil to peer within.   

But nothing was there, she realized as the clutched the button hanging around her neck.  That insanity theory was looking better by the minute.

Casting that thought off, she navigated her way through the dark and back to the desk to retrieve the three letters and then stole to the window, peering outside onto the ledge.  Nothing.  So she made her way to the next, cursing silently when she saw nothing there as well.  The third window held her prey, a small group of birds huddled together as they slumbered.  She cast a quick stunning spell on the group to stop their inevitable flight, opened the window, and gently picked one up, cradling it in her arms as she fumbled for the twine in her pocket.

Fastening the letter to the pigeon’s foot, she focused her mind on her brother and sent a quick homing spell before she released the bird to fly off into the night to find Carver.  That particular enchantment had come courtesy of Merrill, who had learned it before she was outcast from the Dalish.  Such methods made sense coming from the wandering bands of elves; they generally avoided cities and were extremely difficult for typical messengers to track down.  Whatever anyone had to say about the Dalish- no one could deny they had cornered the market on quick communication.  Courier Pigeons- what would those frolicking elves think of next?

She captured another bird and sent him on his way to find Zevran then finally directed the last to find Fenris.  He knew a bit about the Dalish but was unsure if he’d resent the magic she used or even understand it.  Little bother, it wasn’t like anyone could use this tactic to actually locate people.  Otherwise she’d already be tracking Maison’s and Anders’ movements.

Satisfied that the task had been completed and the letters would be delivered, she completed her nightly toilet and settled into bed.  Sleep eluded her, leaving her once more in uneasy disquiet as she once again questioned her actions of the last week.  So she reached for her pack and pulled out her extremely well-loved first edition of Hard in Hightown, Varric Tethras’ notorious Kirkwall serial.  It was utter trash but still an utterly captivating read.  The dwarf had a knack for writing likeable characters and the scoundrel Donnen Brennicovick, the Kirkwall guard who just couldn’t keep himself on the straight and narrow, was hands down among his best.  Opening to the first page, Varric’s elegant calligraphy greeted her with the words, “Hawke, don’t forget to duck.  Varric.”  Then the story began.

She had not completed reading the first page when a soft voice called, “Marian?” and broke her from her reverie.

A quick glance verified the elf was awake again, staring at her inquisitively with those impossibly wide eyes.  “Owen?” she asked back, unsure of anything else she could say to him.  If she failed to find a book that could offer some basic translations, she _had_ to find someone in the Imperium to return with her.  This trek would be an even greater disaster if she couldn’t understand the boy when he attempted to convey his most basic needs.

He started to ask her something in Arcanum then seemed to remember that she did not speak it.  He huffed his frustration before crawling out of his bed to stand next to hers and pointing at the book.  It confused her for a moment- what on earth could he want with a book?  Could he even read?  If he knew she couldn’t speak Arcanum then it stood to logic that he must understand she didn’t read it either.

“Would you like me to read this book to you?” she asked with all the appropriate hand-gestures, hoping to make up for the lack of mutual communication with physical signaling.

Owen’s head bobbed and gave her a little thrill of victory so she pushed her luck a little further and prompted, “Yes?” with a great nod of her head.

“Yes,” he replied with another nod before pointing to the book again.

The smile that escaped her couldn’t be contained.  This may not be as hopeless as she’d previously thought.  If she could get her hands on some picture books, she might stand a chance at prepping Owen for life in the Free Marches.  They were hard to come by certainly- and printed in Common here in Tevinter would be doubly so- but Aurelius might be able to pull some strings and send her off with a few.

She scooted over and let Owen curl up beside her, laying his head on her breast and pointed to the book again.  While Varric’s writing often wasn’t what her mother would have called suitable for children- not by a long shot- Hawke figured that if Owen didn’t speak any Common it shouldn’t really matter.  If she couldn’t find any picture books, she’d likely have to find something at least more age appropriate for him before he started picking up some of the more colorful language that peppered the dwarf’s prose.

“Cuddly thing, aren’t you?” she mused softly as she stroked his hair and returned her attention to the book.  “Donnen Brennicovick believed in three things before that fateful summer day,” she began the story. “Loyalty, fidelity and honor.  If a man had those three things, he knew, then that man would be satisfied, and Donnen had those things, so Donnen was satisfied.  But Fate is never a more rotten bitch than when she takes her aim at a good man- and that’s exactly what she did that hot morning on the Wounded Coast…”

Definitely not a children’s story but the boy thankfully didn’t know that.  Owen was slumbering once more before she even finished the first chapter, breathing deeply and evenly as peaceful rest finally found him, but she kept reading regardless in hopes that the words could penetrate the Fade and keep his nightmares from hounding him.  It was deep into chapter two when she set the book down, closing her eyes to rest them for a minute or so that the sleep took her as well.

* * *

Four days and several healed injuries later, Hawke found herself being escorted once more into the Spire by a single Templar.  However instead of leading her up, up, up the countless stairs and into Aurelius’ office, he led her to a door lurking on the first landing, which had previously been inaccessible to her.  Once the door was unlocked, he led her down a winding stone staircase, across a long dark corridor, and finally into a large room, dominated by a single smallish table.  Of all that she’d witnessed within this very building, this was by far the most Spartan, empty, and unadorned room she’d seen.  Figuring it to be intentional, she took a seat and waited rather impatiently for whatever meeting was certain to happen.

Though she couldn’t rightly orient herself, she suspected on the other side of that torch lit hallway must have been an identical staircase that wound up and into the Imperial Circle and the office of the Archon _._

Today must be the day she was supposed to meet with the Archon and make her case for taking Owen.  She’d had minimal contact with the Imperial Divine, who seemed immensely preoccupied with other matters.  Though it still brought no little amount of irritation that she could not meet with him whenever she wanted, she figured she could forgive him for neglecting her.  Arranging a meeting with the head of the Senate doubtless took a bit of time.  Still, she had the distinct impression the man was avoiding her and she disliked being brushed aside- always had.

Considering the lack of windows or any other manner of natural light, she figured she must be underground.  Normally, being led into a dark room would have her distinctly on edge but she’d become unexpectedly comfortable within these very walls.  This place had actually ended up feeling very safe to her.  If anyone had meant to harm her, there had been an undeniably ample opportunity to do so.  While her stay here had been peppered with multiple injuries, most at her own hands as she struggled with the new tools she’d been given, she’d found a haven from the isolation that had dogged her over the last year.  Loath as she was to admit it, she was going to miss this place.

Curious, she mused.  A room this hidden indicated that the heads of the Chantry and the Senate did not like to be seen fraternizing with one another or at least in this case, did not want to be seen fraternizing with her.  This was a meeting to be made in secret which meant the exposure of said secret could have consequences.  She filed that small realization away in her mind, labeled it ‘Potential Blackmail Points,’ and relaxed back into her chair as the door opened.

Aurelius entered and took a seat beside her.  He didn’t say anything as a Sister brought in several trays of meats and cheeses along with a bottle of Aggregio Pavali and hastily ducked back out with a short bow aimed at the Black Divine.  While the food did look appetizing, her worry left her rather unhungry.   Aurelius, not afflicted by the same nerves, popped a slice of cheese into his mouth.  Hawke wondered if it tasted of sorrow.

When he returned and took his seat once more, Aurelius remained in silence for several long minutes, seeming content to just enjoy the hush in her company.  She finally broke the stillness in the air to ask, “So, will you tell me about my father?”

The Divine chuckled to himself and told her, “Your father was the youngest of thirteen boys and the only born of his mother, Leila- his father’s fourth wife.  She was a powerful priest here in the Chantry,” Aurelius’ expression warmed as he regarded his own folded hands.  “Marcus didn’t much care for his father.  He hated politics and being the youngest it was unlikely he was going to inherit much so he joined the Chantry in honor of his mother.  We met as initiates at age of ten.”  

“So why did he leave Tevinter?” Marian asked.

“We remained close for the next few years but he…” he trailed off for a moment before seeming to carefully select his words, “Marian, your father was a good man who made a series of extremely bad decisions.  The last one saw him marked for death but in the end I don’t think the Maker himself could have kept him here.  He shouldered his guilt for the rest of his life but he blamed the Imperium as well- this place fosters some of the most despicable behaviors I’ve ever seen in people.  I trusted him, knew him better than most, and I helped him escape before the guards found him.”

Her heart dropped a little as the realization set in.  “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“Remember your father as the man he was, Marian, not for the mistakes he made.”

“Why did you come West Hill?” she asked, suddenly overwhelmed by the desire to understand how that meeting had come to pass, how he had met her and subsequently helped her so greatly.

“Marcus’ crimes took a heavy toll on his mother.  She never recovered.  She died in an asylum.  I felt your father had a right to decide how she was buried.  He was angry that we’d come but was grateful to have the ability to bury her with dignity that the end of her life denied her.

“Please believe me, if I’d even suspected for a moment that your family knew nothing of Marcus’ past I would have exercised far more caution in approaching him.  He lived in perpetual fear of the Templars or that his brothers would come after him and would in turn attack his family.  Marcus… Malcolm, I mean, merely wanted his family to be safe.”

“Brothers,” she repeated slowly as that word filtered through her brain.  “I have uncles here?”

“All but three are dead.”  He raised his hand and began counting the others off.  “One is a rather notorious slaver- the legal sort- finds elves in debt, purchases that debt, then harasses their families until they sell themselves into subjugation just to keep their kin safe.  The other two, twins, run pretty much the entire black market- if it’s illegal in Tevinter, they’re elbow deep in it.”

She didn’t like them already.  “I imagine these aren’t the sort of kin I’d want to associate with.”

“You imagine correctly,” he agreed.  “They are just three of the reasons I’ve put so much effort into keeping your presence here quiet.”

“Quiet?” she asked finding that to be quite interesting.  Apparently they really did not want to be seen fraternizing with her.

“The few people who know we’re keeping you are under strict instructions to dissuade anyone of the sheer idea that you may be Marian Hawke or you could be connected in any way to Marcus Harrow.”  He took the bottle of wine and poured a glass for each of them before setting it aside to let it breathe before he continued.  “The only person within the Senate who has been informed of your presence here is the Archon himself.  With the Southern Chantry in such disarray, there’s already been talk in the Senate of a possible march into Nevarra and the Free Marches.  If it became known that you were housed here, we are both concerned it could inspire them to try.”

“If it failed to inspire the Chantry to come in swords swinging to drag me to Val Royeaux by the hair, that is,” she quipped bitterly.

Aurelius nodded in sage agreement before taking a long drink of his wine.  “With the crimes you’ve been accused of and your considerable notoriety, the Senate wouldn’t dream of giving you up- not when it would be such a slap to the South to grant you amnesty.  In either case, unfortunately, it all ends with the civil war coming north.  Phocus and I have agreed that cannot happen.”

It was still strange to watch a supposed holy man drink but she took up her glass anyway.  “I was under the impression it was the Senate’s job to decide these things,” she contemplated aloud before taking a sip of her own.

Loud, warm laughter chortled out of Aurelius then and he chuckled, “The Senate is full of spoiled, posh children fighting about which settlement the Qunari will strike next when they are not busying themselves with murdering each other in their beds.  Decisions of this magnitude aren’t immediately put before them.  If it’s a sensitive issue, the Archon handles it directly and you, Marian Hawke, are an extremely sensitive issue.”

She wondered, “Why are you telling me this?”

“This is a bargaining chip you have against Phocus, Marian,” he informed her.  “Use it wisely.”

Before she could respond, the door creaked again and another man entered, prompting the Imperial Divine to his feet.  Just by looking at him, she knew he must be the Archon Phocus.  She kept herself seated as she observed him, refusing to participate in the minor act of deference Aurelius gave. 

He was handsome; she couldn’t deny that.  Facial hair was neatly groomed, black hair immaculately coifed.  Three rings adorned his hands that she understood were worth a small fortune, not from actually knowing anything about them but that it was blatantly apparent he wouldn’t wear anything inexpensive.  His robes were a deep blue-black and painstakingly embroidered, that much was evident through the low light of this secret meeting place.  Even from her seat, his height was apparent and she estimated he had to be several inches taller than average.  Dark energy rolled off him in low waves like a gloomy tide inching into the sand with every step he took.  It kept her bottom planted firmly in her chair.

Blood magic was common practice throughout the Senate, Fenris had said.  Now she understood that he was not even slightly exaggerating.  There were signs she’d learned to recognize that indicated if someone was a practitioner of blood magic- concealed arms, the strange copper aroma that lingered around them, and a strange buzzing in her mind that left her generally ill at ease.  There was no doubt in her mind this man had done more than his share of deals with demons.   He was defiled with it, infected by it, and glorified for it.

Phocus looked thoughtfully at her, noting her refusal to stand.  She met his gaze coolly and remained seated, sending a clear message to the man before her- you are not worthy of my respect. 

Two Templars accompanied the Archon and took posts standing behind Phocus as he and Aurelius seated themselves.  The lack of such backup behind her and the Divine had her hand twitching for the staff she’d left in her quarters.  Before she could comment, the Archon dismissed his escort with a terse, “Leave us.”

“Ser,” one inquired, “Do you think that wise?”

“You dare question me?” the Archon snapped in return.  It pleased her when the Templar muttered an apology and then retreated into the hallway.  Evil as this man clearly was, it was still amusing to see a mage other than herself bossing about a Templar.

She also noted that little exchange had been in Common, which would not have been the Archon’s nor the Templar’s native tongue.  It was a show for her benefit.  This man wanted to establish his authority, wished to begin this exchange with a power grab.  Dark and terrible as she knew this man was he’d already made a fatal flaw.

He was threatened by her.

Good.  She could use that.

The Archon produced a separate bottle of wine and poured a heavy glass for himself, distrusting the open bottle on the table.  Paranoia.  Excellent.  This man displayed another flaw to her.  He was confident that he was not as all-powerful as he wanted to appear.  That stood to make this exchange a bit easier.  The odds were already skewed in her favor.  She just needed to relax and play her part.

After taking a long drink, he met her gaze and took a seat across from her.  “They say Aggregio is made from the blood of slaves,” he remarked to her.  “What say you?”

“Were that the case then I’d be more than loath to drink it, good ser,” she shot back with a smirk.  “I’d be afraid it was poisoned.” 

He chuckled to spite the flash of irritation in his eyes.  Accompanying that slip in his mask, it was a strangely terrible sound.  “You run with a piece of escaped property called Fenris.  My station obligates that I ask you to return him to the Danarius estate.”

“Good luck with that,” she smiled back, sugary and sweet as a poisoned apple.  “Although if Danarius was as powerful as I’ve heard, I imagine you should be thanking me for helping to dispose of him.  Bit of luck for you, wasn’t it?”

“Very little I do depends on luck, Marian Hawke,” he replied with a flirtatious wink.  “I understand you’d like to rob the Danarius clan of another slave.”

She shrugged and placed her elbow upon the table before propping her chin against her open hand.  She needed to convey that she was unconcerned, relaxed in the presence of this man.  “I figure they can afford to lose another,” she returned with a playful shrug.

“And why should I permit the Chantry to seize possession of private property belonging to one of the most prominent houses in the Senate?”

“Because it makes me happy?” she suggested.

He countered snidely, “I am unconcerned with your happiness.  What is it you plan to give me in return?”  His eyes raked over her figure, silently suggesting her body might be a bargaining piece.

“Phocus…” Aurelius attempted to interrupt.

“Absolutely nothing,” she answered abruptly, cutting Aurelius off before he could speak further, this was her fight not his.  “But perhaps the Senate will be more concerned with my happiness.  I’m under the impression that they’d rather love the opportunity to provoke the Chantry.”

The disguise of friendliness fell away in a heartbeat, leaving Phocus sneering and ugly. “If you think bringing that band of brats into the discussion is an option, permit me to remind you that it’s a chore convincing them not to invade the Free Marches on a good day,” he snarled hatefully.  “The fragmentation of your Chantry has them all the more eager to take back the land that is rightfully ours… and we’ve enough might to win it with your lands in such disarray.”

“And you might win it,” she conceded before allowing the smirk to overtake her again.  This Phocus had shown his hand and it was a weak one.  “But kindly allow me to remind you that if you could hold the South, Phocus, you’d still have it.  And we both know the moment you turn your eyes away from your northern shores, you’ll have an army of Qunari storming it.  That ‘band of brats’ as you so generously put it might be a little too cocky to understand the consequences of such short sight.  Although once you’ve been converted, I don’t think any of you will really care.”

His eyes narrowed, revealing the drooling beast he was as he snarled, “And if I summoned my escort to capture you and deliver you directly to the Lower Chantry?  The Senate need not know that you were even here.”

Aurelius interrupted before she had the chance to reply.  “She is my cleric, Phocus.  If you are considering such a move, be assured that there will be undesirable consequences.”

Phocus stormed to his feet and began pacing around the room.  She made no attempt to track his movements instead taking a dainty drink of her wine, understanding that she was for the moment safe.  It held the added bonus of infuriating the Archon even further. 

“The Qunari gaining a toehold on the mainland has dire consequences for everyone, Hawke,” he loomed over her shoulder and growled into her ear.  “Are you seriously trying to convince me that you’d risk the fate and free will of the entirety of Thedas for the sake of a single boy?  A slave, no less?  You forget the _great_ service Tevinter is providing to Thedas for keeping those Qun-spewing, horn-having zealots at bay.”

She silently agreed that Tevinter was fighting that battle almost entirely on their own.  Though she knew slaves were guaranteed to be a part of that.  That thought sparked her memory of Tallis, strangely enough.  As much as she’d mentally groused at the situation that particular elf had placed her in, she couldn’t deny that the elf at least seemed happier for her freedom from enslavement- even if it meant subjugating herself to a different sort of control.  But still- Chateau Haine had been a wild ride, an insane adventure Tallis took upon herself and did so _against_ the teachings of the Qun. 

If the Qunari invaded Tevinter, she thought recklessly, perhaps Owen and the countless children like him could end up more like Tallis and less like the mangled corpse of his mother.  A taste of freedom could foster a palate for it and people, she knew, would fight oppression once they’d sampled something sweeter.  She’d seen enough Tal-Vashoth to know that dissention lingered in the ranks of the indoctrinated.

She knew it wasn’t worth it.  Logically, Owen did not merit the risk of bringing a new player into the precarious gamble she was already engaged in.

But she’d promised Owen that she would protect him, willingly shouldered that responsibility from Varania, who had denigrated herself day after day to accomplish the same task.  Marian Hawke kept her promises and the Archon could go suck an egg for all she cared.

So she quashed every doubt in her mind, shuttering away all the logic that dictated that Owen wasn’t worth it… if she’d had the chance to think about this longer, she knew she’d come back to that conclusion.  It simply wasn’t worth risking another war in addition to the Chantry’s- and neither war held any high odds at victory.

“It’s hardly my own nose I’d be cutting off, I’m already marked for death,” she retorted with a squaring of her shoulders and lift of her chin as she turned her head to face him.  “The Chantry wants my neck in a noose and my feet swinging in the breeze.”  Her tone dropped into a dramatic, hush as she turned her head and whispered into his ear, “Maybe I want them to know what a life of servitude is like.  Perhaps I might even gain a little peace knowing I’ve torched the earth.”

Phocus reeled away from her and stared at her in complete disbelief.  “You’re bluffing,” he accused.

“Perhaps.”  She shrugged and gave him a warm smile before letting it fall into darkness.  “But I am not the one with something to lose here, Phocus.”

“Except your life,” he retorted.

“Everyone dies,” she pondered aloud as she took another sip of wine.  “I hardly consider myself exempt from that little fact.” 

He slammed both hands upon the table, knocking over one of the wine glasses and shattering it on the floor.  He glared bloody murder at her and demanded, “What about your war?”

She drummed her nails playfully over the tabletop and promised, “It could be _our_ war, Phocus.”

A century of seconds passed in which she saw Phocus’ face screw itself into a wretched mask of barely bridled rage.  In those passing pregnant moments, she wondered briefly if she was going to have to battle the Archon within his own city.  Historically, the Archons were powerful magisters capable of bloody deaths her comparatively limited knowledge could only imagine.  That wasn’t even factoring in the bodyguards, slaves, and blood mage magisters standing only a door’s width away.

Then his face shifted and he threw his head back to release a light barking laughter, which prompted Aurelius to respond nervously in kind, accompanying Phocus’ tittered tenor with his own deep baritone.  “Aurelius told me you had a spark in you.  I see now that he was not mistaken in his assessment.  I will grant you possession of the boy.”

But his jovial, friendly affectation gave no balm to the wound.  Phocus was an eager participant in the rampant problem that infected this land, a virus that couldn’t be cured.  Phocus was not a friend.  He was a problem- _the_ problem that had plagued Fenris and Orana and Varania and Lothri and Owen.  He condoned the purchase and use of people that stripped them of the very same self-determination the Qun would have.

Quite suddenly, Hawke was struck with another bizarre notion that refused to shake free.

“I’m happy to hear that,” she smiled at the Archon, “because the price of my anonymity just went up.”

* * *

_End of Chapter 12_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to my fantastic betas, AmericanCorvus and BuriedBeneath for their awesome screening of my grammatical errors.
> 
> Also, huge thanks for all the reviews and likes and reposts. You’re all my bread and butter. XD


	13. Making Friends

Nemesis  
Chapter 13- Making Friends

“ _Would you have abandoned her if I hadn’t done it first?”  
Sebastian Vael_  


It was three weeks of minimal conversation.

Three weeks of endless marching, ceasing only to sleep or eat and then plowing forward once more with only a map and the sun to guide them. The rebellion seemed entirely loath to use roads, which made sense considering most of the people within it were in fact wanted criminals. They veered from the woods only when the path was otherwise obstructed and then plunged back into the wilderness the moment it became clear that they could.

Fenris’ years on the run meant that he was much accustomed to these sorts of techniques for remaining hidden. Foraging, avoiding detection at all costs- this was all an old hat to him but regardless he was surprised that after so much time it still fit like he’d never bothered to take it off. Thusly, he found himself being often consulted as to which moves they should make. It was interesting that his own wretched experience should be considered somehow useful but there it was, uncomfortable and awkward as the circumstances that brought him back to it.

The days were long. The nights were longer. When Fenris would lay awake and question this path, wonder time and again if this was the proper course, and let his mind amble back to her, he allowed himself to speculate what she was doing- was she pregnant, did she miss him. Margot had not informed them what she planned to do in Minrathous, snapping only that the knowledge was need-to-know and he apparently didn’t need to know. Carver and Marian were playing close to the chest and given the beyond risky nature of what they were doing it was abundantly clear that was a calculated move. He found himself wondering if Margot herself even knew.

And Carver’s strange reaction to the mention of his sister left the Templar with little doubt that he worried for his sister’s safety. Whatever she was doing in Minrathous had to be at least as dangerous as the city itself.

He spent much time speculating on whatever her mission in Tevinter was. As a result of his restless thoughts, Fenris found himself volunteering for night’s watch much more than his fair share. If he could occupy himself with an actual task perhaps he could actually manage to so something productive with his insomnia instead of simply lying awake and staring up at the night sky with only the soft snoring of his companions and his thoughts to keep him company.

It was also three weeks of weighted and painful silence- the very sort one could expect not when there was nothing to be said but rather there was an overabundance of it. While the absence of trivial conversation was usually something Fenris preferred, the heavy nature of the enforced quiet was not lost on any of them. It hung over the party like a dark weight on all their shoulders. Varric seemed unusually disinterested in conversation. Margot appeared to be utterly repulsed by the sheer idea of it. For how she’d campaigned for their acceptance into the camp, she gave all appearances of wishing Sebastian and Fenris banished from her presence- himself more so, though he couldn’t rightly figure why.

“So, Margot,” Sebastian had dared to ask during one particularly long stretch of highway. “Where are you from?”

“Ferelden then Nevarra before the Free Marches,” came her blunt reply as she continued forward, seeming to consider the exchange finished. Little did she realize the prince was not so easily thwarted.

“You’re well-traveled,” Sebastian casually remarked, unwilling to let the conversation falter. “Was your father a merchant?”

“Wouldn’t know. I never met him,” she answered. Fenris heard Sebastian take a breath to ask another question when Margot sighed and elaborated. “He left when my mother told him that she was pregnant. That’s all I ever knew about him.”

Sebastian had the grace to look abashed, understanding that this line of questioning was doubtless hitting a sore part of the woman. “I’m sorry.”

Margot stopped and turned on the prince, eying him curiously. “Why? Why should that bother you?” It was intriguing to watch the two tango, pushing whenever the other retreated. Perhaps the woman found herself fancying the priest. It certainly wasn’t inconceivable. Sebastian was wealthy, intelligent, charming, and a crack-shot to boot. His continued bachelordom was due more to his pickiness than from a lack of appealing offers- some of the letters Sebastian received were downright pornographic in detail. A nobleman had petitioned for Sebastian to court his daughter and offered to throw in his other two when they came of age. The prince had the man bodily thrown out of the castle and sneered that pimping his daughters just made them whores, and he could easily procure one at the brothel for cheaper.

The archer considered his answer for a moment before responding. “My father may have been distant but at least he was there.”

“My father found out my mother was pregnant, spent a week whoring it up at the Pearl, and then put himself on the next ship out of Denerim.” She took a deep breath and toyed with the dagger at her side. “I prefer to think that was the best he had to offer. My mother had a long string of lovers. Worthless as they were, at least they pretended to care… more than she did at any rate. I took off at eleven and never looked back. Best lesson he ever taught me.”

“You just… left?” Sebastian balked at the idea of a young girl setting off so young and appraised her curiously. “As a mere child?”

“You mean abandoned my glorious future as a barmaid in Denerim? Of course I did. I met Hervan and went to Nevarra; moved on when it was clear that was over. I settled into the Order after that. I liked it there.”

Sebastian continued, “Why did you leave?”

“Because the Divine told me to murder my charges. It seemed as good a time as any to make an exit,” she added with a laidback shrug, though Fenris could read the movement as being somewhat forced. That decision, it appeared, had not been quite as easy as she pretended. “I made my way east with a few other defectors and met Hawke. She got us lyrium, nursed us back to health, and we’ve been in the rebellion since.”

“Do you wonder what would have happened if you stayed?”

“I didn’t join the Templars to become the Chantry’s attack dog.”

“Why did you join?” the prince persisted.

Her eyes narrowed, hackles raised. “I fail to see how that’s any of your business. It certainly wasn’t to do the Divine’s dirty work.” This was apparently a delicate subject for the woman but Fenris found himself also curious as to her thought process that brought her to abandon the anchor she’d found in the Chantry.

And Sebastian, sensing the bruise in the conversation, stuttered, “I don’t mean to intrude but…”

Margot cut him off, “Why did _you_ join the Chantry? Hardly seems to be the princeliest of pursuits. Maybe I’m not the one with father-issues here.”

Fenris caught himself beginning to smirk but forced the expression back- Margot certainly wasn’t above aiming for the jugular that much was obvious. That jab, however, was a bit of overkill- there was little need to pull out a sword when a dagger would do the trick. It was a message, back off, stated more clearly than her words had been. Margot did not like talking about the circumstances that drove her into the Templars. Her absent father, her abusive mother- there was no difficulty for her to speak of them.

They weren’t what she’d been running from, he realized. She’d been abandoned, abused, and subsequently shed her anchor and floated on to something different. No fault in that. He himself had also ‘made an exit’ so to speak once the gravity of the circumstances binding him to Danarius had found him. So what was it that drove a drifter such as she into a lifetime of pledged servitude?

“I had much to atone for,” Sebastian answered after a moment.

Margot gave a wry half-smile and pulled a map out of her pocket to check their course. “It seems a lot of us end up there for that reason.”

Margot glanced at him then and Fenris shared an odd moment of unity with the strange woman. There were debts each owed and for whatever reason, Margot left the Order when she considered the balance paid- when the Rite of Annulment was broadcast to the Circles- but she was disinclined to share further and Fenris understood that he and Sebastian weren’t familiar enough for her to divulge such intimate knowledge.

Sebastian, too, seemed to understand this and left the rest of the long trek to silence. Fenris caught Varric staring at Margot’s back curiously, undoubtedly filling in the gaps of her story with speculation or perhaps hearing something in her words that the elf had missed.

* * *

Absorbed in the process of construction, the Grey Wardens busied themselves with laying down brick and mortar to build a new stronghold perched rather precariously at the threshold of an entrance to the Deep Roads. Fenris had heard their ranks had been virtually wiped out in Ferelden but there was no evidence of diminished numbers here. It was peculiar though that this Oghren, a native to Orzammar, would have strayed so far from his home. Part of being a Grey Warden must have meant that one traveled wherever they were needed. A dwarf would certainly be helpful in constructing the necessary choke points at the cusp of the caves.

The Wardens openly gaped at their presence before quickly taking them to their de facto leader, who questioned their intentions with the group before gruffly directing them to the northeastern corner of the camp, saying only, “You’ll find him at the still.”

The still, as it was, was little better than a large copper vat teeming with something that made Fenris’ eyes water. The dwarf stood a scant foot away, taking a ginger sip of the concoction from his giant spoon before haphazardly throwing in some herbs. The massive hammer clasped on his back warned that this likely wasn’t someone they’d benefit from sneaking up on, so they stood several feet back and waited for the dwarf to acknowledge them.

Without turning on them, his gruff, gravel voice rang out, “You aren’t Wardens.”

Fenris couldn’t resist the urge to ask, “What are you doing?”

“Brewing.” The dwarf passed a thick calloused hand up to pull a soaked braided whisker into his mouth and tasting it thoughtfully. “Needs more clove,” he mused to himself and opened his satchel to drop a few dark pellets into the pot. “They say it stinks but they sure as shit don’t mind drinking me out of it. I’ve got to water it down for the little snowflakes, though. Tried giving them the real stuff and the Commander almost had my head when she woke up two days later. I had to defend this whole operation by myself- won’t be making that mistake again, believe me.

“So a Templar, an elf, a human and a dwarf walk into a bar,” he finished with a chuckle. “You’d think one of them would have seen it.”

Sebastian was the first to regain his composure after the dwarf’s strange monologue and asked, “Are you the Grey Warden they call Oghren?”

“They call me a lot of things- Drunky, Nug-Shit, Oh-Maker-Please-Stop-Murdering-Me-With-Your-Hammer,” he replied, whipping the giant bejeweled hammer from his back with the same effort one might have wielded a feather before he growled dangerously. “Usually in about that order.”

Sebastian shot a wary look at the rest of the group, unsure exactly what to expect from the man before them but mentally preparing for attack, fingers twitching toward the bow clasped upon his back. “So… you are not Oghren then?”

The dwarf ground out a chortle, which moved the red riot of his braided beard. “Oh they call me that too. Oghren happens to be one of my nicer names. I’m just not one for niceties.”

Margot stepped forward then and straightened her spine to further accent the difference in their heights. “Oghren, we need your help,” she spoke with a mixture of diplomacy and grave seriousness.

Oghren laughed and slumped his shoulders in a way that communicated that he didn’t think he’d have any issues with her regardless of her stature. “And here I thought you wanted my brew or aimed to ask me about my glorious battles with the Many-Nippled Beasts of the Deep Roads. Listen sister, I’m not much for helping either unless the help you need involves alcohol or a hammer, preferably both.”

“We’re emissaries from the Mage Rebellion, Oghren,” she ground out impatiently. Her tense demeanor made it abundantly clear the dwarf was rattling her and he seemed to delight in it. “We wanted to ask you a few questions.”

“The Mage Rebellion?” He paused to let out a great belch that echoed through the woods and sent birds flying for safety. “I think your imminent destruction is a bit wester than here.”

She eyed him in mild disgust and tried again. “We need your assistance.”

“Grey Wardens are… shit, what do they keep calling us?” He refastened his hammer to his bolster and stroked his chin thoughtfully for a few moments before he snapped his fingers and beamed. “Apolitical. That’s it. We fight Darkspawn and Blights. The Mage Rebellion? Not our problem, lady. You skirt-wearing freaks will have to duke it out on your own.”

Margot huffed out a groan of frustration and struck back. “Look, we aren’t asking you to fight with us. We just need some information about Justice and Anders. Think you could do that? Talk in full sentences?”

The mention of the subjects of their inquiries sparked the angry dwarf’s full attention. “You mean Sparklefingers and the Eunuch? What about them?” Then the look was shuttered off and that malicious sneer overtook his half-obscured face once more. “Wait, scratch that. I don’t think I want to know. You can leave now.”

“But…”

“Don’t know. Don’t care,” he declared and turned back to his brewing. “Won’t even pretend to care. Everyone knows what Man-Skirt did in Kirkwall and I don’t want a piece of it. I suggest you go.”

Before the conversation could devolve further, Varric stepped forward and said, “Atrast nal tunsha.”

Oghren went silent for several long moments before he turned back and whispered, “Now who the shit told you that?”

“The same eight-foot pile of stone that wanted me to tell you that sometimes people need to be kept from doing stupid things, even for good reasons,” the beardless dwarf replied.

“That hunk of rock is still thundering around, eh?” he chuckled and took another sip of the brew. “Needs hemlock. These babies won’t let me put it in. ‘Oghren it’s _poison_ ,’ they say. Bunch of whiners.”

“Oghren,” Margot answered softly, “We desperately need your help.”

“Oooh… _desperation_ … now there’s a scent I like on a woman.”

“How about the scent of steel?”

“Now you’re just being kinky.”

Margot groaned loudly and turned her back for a moment. Apparently, Oghren was testing the all-too-shallow waters of her patience. “We know Anders and Justice were separate at one point,” she growled. “We want to know how they joined.”

Those words had the dwarf dropping his ladle back into the pot with a wide-eyed gape. “Joined?” he asked incredulously before staring down at the dirt in wonder. “ _Fuck_ , he really did it, didn’t he?”

“Anders did what?” Fenris asked.

“Not Anders, Justice. He joined with a living host,” the stout warrior explained as he reached for a flask resting on his hip and unclasped the cork. His demeanor had shifted from something cool and cruel to one that was clearly distressed. “Always knew you couldn’t trust anything that came out the Fade. Justice was always, ‘Never with a living host.’ I guess he finally showed us,” he finished with a long drink.

Fenris decided to press his luck. Since Oghren no longer appeared to hold the upper hand, perhaps they could extract some information before he righted himself. “Showed you what? Anything you can offer…”

“Listen here, I got a lot to offer if the lady wants to bend over… but what help do you think I’ve got for you?” Oghren inquired impatiently. “Justice vacated Kristoff once his corpse got too cold and found himself an idiot mage to host him instead. End of story.”

“Who is Kristoff?”

“A dead Grey Warden. Some magic hullabaloo happened in the Fade and Justice found himself stuck in a dandy corpse. His wife was horrified.”

Fenris felt his eyebrows inch toward his hairline as he considered the implications of what the dwarf had said. “You mean to say Justice has been in a corpse before?” he begged for the clarification. He’d heard of abominations before but never one controlling a vacant body. Had Hawke _known_ about this? It stood to reason that Anders and Justice would have wished this information to be secret but with the ample time they’d spent with Marian… certainly she must have known.

The Warden’s beady eyes narrowed. “What do you mean _before_?”

“Anders is dead… but he has regardless been remarkably busy,” Fenris informed him.

Ignoring the elf’s statement, Oghren stood completely still, seeming locked within his own thoughts, before finally declaring, “I think I need a drink.” He stalked to a small chest next to his still and opened it to remove a few cups, dipping them into the brew and handing one off to each of them. “Bottoms up,” he ordered before downing his cup and quickly refilling it.

Deciding now was as good a time as any to get sloppy-drunk at the behest of the Grey Wardens’ resident brewmaster, Fenris took a sip. The brew was actually surprisingly pleasant, if a little strong, and he took a deeper drink after raising his cup approvingly to the dwarf. Only Sebastian failed to follow suit, eying the beverage in his hands warily as he offered it back with a mumbled, “I do not drink.”

Oghren refused the cup and answered, “You do today.”

“I don’t mean to insult you…”

“You know what alcohol does?” Oghren inquired with an unveiled caustic acid on his tongue. “Loosens the brain. Lowers inhibitions. Pulls your guard down. I see a man who doesn’t drink and I see a man who’s afraid of the man he really is. So why should I trust a man who doesn’t even trust himself? If you want to talk about Anders, you’d better man up.”

Sebastian wasn’t lying, Fenris hadn’t seen the prince take a sip of alcohol beyond the occasional glass of wine in all the time they’d known one another. The archer had once confessed that he did not like the man he became when he was intoxicated. This left the elf wondering dismally if there was not some truth in the Warden’s words; that perhaps a drunken Sebastian was someone who should be locked away and never seen or heard from again and that the prince, as he truly was, had to be greatly tempered with a thick sober bevel before anyone would deem him proper company.

But the dwarf had the lapsed priest up against a wall, so to speak. Fenris watched his friend’s shoulders fall as he too realized that he’d have to make the concession if they wanted to gain the surly dwarf’s assistance. Sebastian considered Oghren’s words and raised his cup in a mock toast, declaring snidely, “Here’s to the end of ten years sober. I hope whatever you have to say is worth it.”

“I can’t promise you that,” Oghren answered his salute with one of his own, “But it should be damned interesting.”

Sadistically waiting until the prince’s first serving was finished, the Warden quickly refilled his cup and leaned heavily against a tree. “So I guess he really can’t go back,” he said finally, gazing into his cup as though he were pulling his words directly from it.

“What do you mean?” Sebastian retorted.

“I wasn’t exaggerating when I said Justice was stuck,” the dwarf explained. “I’d just hoped that dead blighter had made his way back into the Fade. But he’s in Anders, eh?”

Sebastian nodded, “Yes.”

“And he’s dead now.”

“That appears to be the case,” Varric agreed with a serious nod as he took up a seat against a tree, settling in to temper the drink’s effects.

“I liked Anders. Normally I’d swear you to secrecy or something but I guess that doesn’t really matter anymore,” Oghren told them. “He was a good drinking buddy and that Ser-Pounce-A lot got him more tail than just the cat’s, if you take my meaning. When I heard what happened in Kirkwall something told me that Anders wasn’t acting alone. I just didn’t believe it. I certainly didn’t think he could do something that insane on his own.”

The sad and resigned look on the berserker’s face had Fenris believing him- which directly conflicted with everything the elf had known about the abomination. “How so?”

“You’ve got to understand this about the mage,” Oghren answered with a solemn drink. “Anders never wanted to fight a war. Anders just wanted to be free. He couldn’t be bothered to clip his toenails for Circle mages, just didn’t give a shit about them. If they wanted to escape, he figured they could do it on their own like he did. But Justice…” he trailed off, losing whatever forward momentum he’d had and letting the words fall flat and unspoken in the back of his damned throat.

Margot, understanding this stillness was a sign of vulnerability, gently pressed, “Justice what?”

“Justice was always needling him,” Oghren huffed angrily. “He’d go on and on about the injustice of mages being oppressed. He called them slaves, called them prisoners, kept questioning how Anders could be so selfish to not attempt to help his kind. Towards the end, I thought he was actually starting to get through to Sparky. Then Kristoff dropped dead… well, deader… and Anders took off. We all figured that was the end of it. Never crossed my mind those two would join up.”

This portrait of the abomination was completely different from the monster he’d known in Kirkwall. The mage had harped and yowled and bitched about oppression from the moment he’d made their acquaintance. “Anders has been a extremist as long as we’ve known him,” Fenris told him.

Oghren stared up at the group, looking strangely gloomy and earnest. “Then you never knew him,” he muttered into his drink. “I don’t know who you think he was but I can tell you he wasn’t Anders.”

“We need someone who can help make sense of this,” Sebastian declared, valiantly struggling against his treacherous, slurring tongue. “Will you come with us?”

“Yeah,” he answered sadly and dropped his small metal cup back into his trunk. “I think I will.”

Sebastian’s subsequent rapid downward spiral into intoxication meant they couldn’t move from the Grey Wardens’ encampment until morning. Fenris found himself generally unconcerned with the half day of travel lost. From what Shale had told them, he’d actually prepared for a much longer stay while they attempted to convince Oghren to accompany them back to the heart of the rebellion. When he’d asked if the dwarf needed to check with his superiors before leaving, he’d simply snarled that if the Wardens wanted his presence they could come get him whenever they found the stones to try and fetch him.

They set up their bedrolls, save the prince who simply collapsed to the dirt and swatted away any attempts to move him, and settled in for the evening. Feeling unusually at ease, the elf propped himself against a tree and tried distracting himself with a book but the letters were all swimming before his eyes as though he were literally trying to read them through the drink he’d imbibed. He caught occasional words like home, fidelity, honor, and pride before he finally came to the conclusion that reading was going to cause more disquiet than simply sitting silently would similarly plague him. So he rested and stared blankly at the pages he failed to clear, using the book as a shield against further conversation.

All of them were circled around the still as though it was a campfire staving off the harsh night. Oghren lost himself in his cup, giggling at his own half-mumbled jokes. Varric was scribbling something, Fenris did not know what nor did he care to know how the merchant could place his utensil to parchment so decidedly after such heavy drink. Margot just sat back in the same cool silence he’d come to expect as normal for her.

He found himself strangely liking Margot, which was unusual since she seemed not to care a jot for him. She had the same practical logic he’d respected in Aveline and, much like the aforementioned Guard-Captain, a very guarded demeanor. However, whereas Aveline’s careful distance had been a mark of her authority, the distinct impression he got was that Margot’s aloof persona was the result of having been perpetually disappointed by every institution she’d ever attempted to find shelter in. He could relate to that. He too had seen his fair share of corruption. He found himself pondering the woman’s sleek and narrow nose, her high cheeks… before uncomfortable thoughts brought themselves back around. Margot reminded him ever so slightly of…

Hadriana….

It hurt to think of her but that vessel of ignorance and denial had departed years ago, long before he’d found her on the Wounded Coast. Wounded, he chuckled silently to himself now at how appropriate the place he’d ended her reign over him had truly been. Maybe now was the time to finally see it off. He’d already faced her as the monster she’d become, perhaps it was time instead to face the ghost she continued to be- years away from where he’d killed her, a lifetime away from his memory of her as she’d once been.

He steeled himself as the memory of her, fresh faced and wide-eyed as she’d been the day she’d first come into Danarius’ home, entered his mind. He usually tried valiantly not to think of her. She’d tainted enough in his life. As much as he hated to admit it- as desperately as he wanted to deny it- the apprentice had actually been kind at the start, sneaking him food and stealing into the store rooms to chat with him deep into the night. Hadriana had once been an idealist, proclaiming her desire to use her breeding to better the world. Nothing had ever happened beyond their secret conversations, he’d always had the distinct impression that she was a slave as well- not as a possession to Danarius but to the expectations of Imperial society. In the end Danarius needn’t lift a finger to rip them apart. She’d done it on her own.

He remembered once she’d told him about a trip to the Free Marches, where she’d seen this mystical thing called snow. “Ice!” she’d exclaimed to him in childlike wonder, “Falling from the sky itself! No magic or anything. It’s just so cold that ice falls from the sky instead of rain down there! Is that not amazing?”

In his first winter in Kirkwall, he’d been locked in his mansion when the first flakes fell from the sky. He’d gone to the roof and watched it with rapt attention. The passers-by on the road below bitched about the cold, wrapping themselves tightly in their coats and struggled to remain on their smooth-soled shoes. After a few hours, he’d gone to Lowtown, fully intent on visiting the Hanged Man, when his cold feet took him instead to the Alienage. He watched the children in the Alienage make weeping snowmen with haphazard grey faces and found himself enchanted.

“That’s nothing,” Marian voiced called behind him. He turned with guilty shock to find himself faced with her wry, challenging grin- the mage completely unaware of his conflicting thoughts. “You should see winter in Ferelden. Our snowmen are pure white and they don’t melt till spring. We used to dress ours up for months! Carver made small armies of them. Bethany and I would make them fight.”

Though he had a hard time picturing Hawke as a child then, he nevertheless chuckled at the idea of her and her sister manipulating a small ice army for the amusement of their brother.

He sighed and thought of Hadriana again. Slowly, as corruption typically was, he’d seen the potential for power twist that sweet girl into something ugly and wicked and terrible; leaving her a sadistic torturer of an entirely different sort. She knew his confusion, knew his heart and his mind so much better than his master… and in the end she’d warped her affection into hatred and hounded him at each and every turn. She beat him, tortured him, starved him, and hated him. Evil was not born- it was made. Hadriana, sweet and pretty Hadriana, had been a perfect example of that.

He knew Hadriana’s descent into the abyss had colored his feelings for Marian, had made him wait for the inevitable spiral that never seemed to come. But for the first time he wondered how many of those misgivings the apostate had actually earned. The years with Hadriana had poisoned him longer and deeper than anyone could ever know. Thinking about the parallels between Hadriana and Marian always left him feeling a bit sick- so he avoided it.

Marian was not Hadriana… but still he wondered with an unthinkable clarity how many times the sparrow would have to prove it before he’d truly believe it. How far would she have to go before he could stop waiting for the other boot to come down on his neck?

It was the thought of Marian that had made him kill her. She never said the word, never demanded or commanded it- never even known. She’d simply offered him the promise of something infinitely better. He’d killed Hadriana for Marian, purged one senseless obsession for another, destroyed a vital piece of his past to procure a future that he’d throw away for three damned years, gain for a week, then furiously toss away again, then fixate upon once more for over a year.

Margot caught his gaze and he realized far too late that he’d been staring rather openly at her, though his thoughts had been focused in the rather distant elsewhere. She shot him a wry smirk before movement in his peripheral vision movement startled them both out of the moment. Sebastian stumbled to his feet and staggered over to him, head bobbing as though he were trying to track the movement of some pesky fly though his eyes remained glued to the elf.

The archer had a distinctly green pallor about him, making Fenris speculate if the prince needed some assistance. That thought was lost in the slurred words of, “I need to talk to you.”

Margot giggled slightly to herself as the prince stumbled over to Fenris. “We can talk tomorrow. You are astonishingly drunk,” Fenris told him gently as he set down his book, rising to help his friend wander back to a proper bedroll where he could sleep it off in relative comfort.

But Sebastian shrugged away from his attempt to steady him, shaking his head as he swayed unsteadily on his feet. “Would you have abandoned her if I hadn’t done it first?”

So it was this conversation. He’d known it was coming although had hoped the lapsed Brother would have allowed him more time to prepare for it… or at the very least attempted to have it in relative privacy. “I cannot say,” Fenris answered softly as he tried to ignore the others as their attention came to them. “But I can say that the cards as they have fallen are most disconcerting. I can see similar paths that I may have taken, influenced by but not entirely directed by you.”

Sebastian made a frustrated sound, clearly displeased with the elf’s unusually diplomatic non-answer. “But would you have taken up your sword against her?” Sebastian persisted, swaying dangerously on his feet towards the still, then away, then back to it once more.

It was the very sword she’d given him. He’d called it ironic then but Irony hadn’t visited him in truth until the Gallows when he took up her gift to him and battled her with it. Sebastian hadn’t thought to take it with him and for that at least Fenris had been grateful. If his eyes had found it when he’d first awakened, Fenris wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have simply fallen upon it to end the story he’d foolishly embarked upon with Marian.

Fenris instead placed his hands on the other man’s shoulders to hold him in place and replied patiently, “I cannot say for certain that I would have. I also cannot say that I would not have. It is not the past we need concern ourselves with- we’ve both clearly failed in some capacity there- it is the future we need concern ourselves with now.”

“She avenged my family,” Sebastian slurred miserably and looked up at him with a strange wetness in his eyes. “She brought honor back into their senseless murders.”

So it seemed the priest was an overly passionate drunk and intoxication brought about some fantastic urgency to level his emotions. Great. “Marian is a rational, forward-facing creature, Sebastian,” the elf explained as he desperately tried to herd Sebastian away from the prying eyes of their companions, to at least let him wake with a semblance of dignity he’d doubtless lose if he had a drunken meltdown in front of everyone. “If that hasn’t changed then you can expect a conversation with her at least.”

Sebastian gazed up at him with wide eyes that reminded him solely of Hawke and replied, “And you?”

Hadriana at the height of her innocence had never looked so dauntless. “She and I need to speak. That much is obvious,” he answered instead.

“And what would you say to her?”

He weighed the question heavily in his mind. What could he say? Did he want her to stay with her furious devotion and fiery countenance or did he want her to retreat safely away from his reach forever? Should he monitor her, could he monitor her? Did he even want to?

“I do not know,” he replied slowly. “I suspect I will not know until the time comes for it to be said.” He sighed and once more tried to manipulate the prince away from the group.

Thwarted again by unsteady arms pushing him away, Fenris found himself growing increasingly impatient. “Why did you leave her?” Sebastian asked.

The elf was startled by the question, thinking the alcohol had made his companion forget the conversation they’d literally just had. “The same reason you did.”

“No. I mean before,” Sebastian clarified. “You had her. How could you leave her that way?”

Fenris felt each set of eyes shift back to him, bringing him once more into the hated center of attention. Even Oghren had heaved himself away from his drink and taken notice of them. “Everything happened so quickly,” he mumbled as quietly as he could- although the rapt silence of their cohorts meant they likely still heard his response. “I was a coward, I admitted that much to her.”

“And what did you do instead?” the prince huffed angrily as he turned on his friend, face twisting into an uncharacteristic sneer. “You brooded over her every day, made it clear to her in every possible manner how you _suffered_ for her.”

Fenris backed away from the man, the slap of his words ringing shame straight through him. Had it been that obvious? He’d attempted to back out gracefully, had even considered leaving Kirkwall permanently… then Leandra had been killed and he’d felt he had no choice but to return in her hour of need. He never found the strength to consider leaving again. “What is it to you?” he retorted, feeling his anger rise up.

“Why don’t you admit it? You left because you have nothing to give her and you left her with all the compassion you’d have given one of your whores at the brothel.” Sebastian attempted to punctuate his words with a shove but his intoxication had him instead staggering backwards as the elf refused to back down.

The comparison of Hawke to the various women he’d paid and bedded in the last year had him seeing red. “You are drunk,” Fenris spat heatedly, “and I am not having this discussion with you now.”

“At least when I realized I had nothing to offer, I left her alone,” the archer slurred, spitting his words in a fury. “Even _Anders_ begged her off. But not you. Not you, Fenris. You just couldn’t leave her be. You just could not tell her no and let her move on.”

The gravity not of the prince’s words but the unspoken sentiment behind it went through him like a shockwave. He remembered the prince and the apostate chuckling together, recalled the archer escorting her to various Society functions to fend off the ruthless advances of her potential suitors, replayed for the first time the way Sebastian had mooned at her as they walked together through the Hightown market. Sebastian, it seemed, had not been as unaffected by Marian’s casual flirting as he’d let on.

That realization tempered the rage that had been building. This wasn’t an attack on Fenris; it was a defense of Marian- a defense the archer had been harboring and repressing for well beyond this last year. “She is a difficult woman to say no to,” Fenris mused quietly.

“Aye. That she is,” Sebastian agreed with a distracted chuckle. “That she is.”

With a feeling very much like pity, he asked, “If you wanted her, why didn’t you say anything to her?”

That statement ripped Sebastian away from his amusement and back into the full brunt of his anger. “And what could I have given her? Brought her into the Chantry and given her what? A chaste marriage?” He laughed bitterly and gave the elf a shove, his ire managing to stagger the elf for a brief moment, before he shouted, “She’s not a chaste woman, Fenris! You know that firsthand!”

“If you wanted her and said nothing, you hardly have me to blame,” the elf spat.

“I did not want her, not that way, not trapped in something that would make her miserable. I wanted her to be happy. I thought she could have that with you. It has become abundantly clear that I was mistaken.” The archer glared at the disgraced Templar with a withering sort of disdain. “She would have been better off if you had left her alone.”

Fenris brought himself up to his full height and glared down at the slouching sovereign. “So then why did you send me to meet with her?”

“I certainly wasn’t expecting you to bed her!”

Any reply Fenris could have supplied was cut off with a feminine gasp, which drew the attention of the group. Margot was staring at Fenris with a look lingering somewhere between disbelief and deep hurt. “She… she slept with you?” the woman asked in soft torment.

Bewilderment held the elf for only a minute before the realization hit Fenris harder than any weapon ever could have as he regarded Margot. The men in the group, excepting Fenris, all exchanged long looks as they all came to the same conclusion he had. Fenris, kept his eyes planted firmly on the woman as he frantically assessed the information she’d just revealed. Margot and Marian were apparently _much_ closer than the guarded woman had let on and perhaps Hawke had been in the process of moving on before they’d haphazardly swung at each other that cold night.

Fuck.

“Yes,” Fenris answered hesitantly as he turned to face her, hating himself as he saw her flinch almost imperceptibly against the word. “In the Frostback Mountains. I was the Templar she met there.”

Margot’s head fell, letting her blonde hair conceal her anguished face. “I forgot… I needed to…” the woman attempted to articulate a graceful escape for only a moment longer before uttering a simple, “Excuse me,” and rose to make a quick retreat into the woods.

Sebastian dropped to a sitting position, eyeing the cauldron of alcohol that had helped to bring about this painfully awkward exchange as though he wished to drown himself further within it. Varric was similarly still, his quill still perched upon the paper. The ink was bleeding through, ruining whatever manuscript he’d been writing.

“Wow Broody,” the dwarf said finally. “You turned her off to men entirely.”

“Do you think this funny?” Fenris growled and nervously raked a hand through his hair. “Is this is your idea of some sort of sick joke?”

“No. I can’t say I find any of this particularly funny,” Varric admitted sadly, crumbling up his parchment and tossing it into the fire. “Margot’s a good woman. Hawke never gave any indication that they were…”

Sebastian cut in with a slurred, “Should someone go talk to her?”

Oghren chimed in with a shake of his head, Fenris had forgotten the Warden’s presence until he’d had a mind to speak. “I wager that if she wanted to talk, she’d still be here. I’ve pissed off my fair share of women and I know this- when they walk away, let them come back on their own.”

“And how many times have you been married?” Varric asked.

“Enough to know I should have let the first bitch walk away,” Oghren declared darkly as he served himself another round. “You pour it in and it all pours out, doesn’t it?”

They all sat in uncomfortable silence. Fenris realized why Margot had seemed so distant. It hadn’t been simply because he and Sebastian had betrayed her friend. She’d known Fenris was a rival for her lover’s interest. She had, he realized dismally, been insulating herself from further hurt. Hurt that he’d unwittingly delivered when he stole her lover.

A woman, he kept thinking selfishly… and he knew it was selfish. He had no claim upon Marian but felt nevertheless painfully inadequate. Marian had taken to bed with a woman. She’d turned away Isabela’s brazen advances, turned away countless offers from men and women alike. Had so much changed? Was everything so vastly and irrevocably different?

He came to the abrupt and uncomfortable conclusion that it was not- not for him at any rate. Whatever plagued his mind needed to be dealt out and Marian Hawke held all the cards. Somehow, that assertion didn’t shake the weird flipping of his stomach as he considered Marian and Margot together, pictured Marian’s tongue slipping over a taut female body, imagined her coiling around Margot’s steady frame, mouth open… wanting… hands caressing… He shook his head hard, trying to purge those images from his mind.

As if reading his thoughts, Varric muttered dryly, “Isabela is going to have a field day with this.”

* * *

If the silence from the trip there had been awkward, then the quiet that hovered over them all on the hike back was downright oppressive. The first day had been treacherous; the remnants of alcohol making the group sluggish save for Oghren, who Fenris suspected had escaped the wretchedness of a hangover by continuing to be drunk. It was difficult to resist the urge to join him.

Margot had not come back before he’d fallen asleep. He’d awakened in the morning with a blistering headache to find the woman haphazardly throwing her belongings into her pack and breaking down their camp. When he’d attempted to speak with her she simply huffed, “Don’t. Just don’t.”

He’d dropped the issue. Pressing her on this was only going to make matters worse. He positioned himself as far from her as he safely could, hoping the physical distance could be some sort of peace offering between them. At times he thought he could feel her staring at him but refused to look back. Even though he knew he hadn’t personally betrayed the woman, he regardless felt incredibly culpable for his part in it. Guilt was familiar, an old enemy to meet and exchange blows with when it reared its ugly head. He just couldn’t bring himself to fight it now.

He was relieved, _relieved_ , when they finally entered the perimeter of the mages’ campsite. That respite was quickly ripped away when a man quickly found them, the cloth of his Templar uniform tattered and ripped but the metal shining and oiled.

“Patrols found a Templar wandering in the woods, said he was looking to arrange a meeting between his outfit and the rebellion,” he announced nervously to the group, although it was abundantly apparent that his words were intended solely for Margot.

“That’s promising,” the woman replied seriously. It was like the nerves and the awkwardness of their journey had melted away in a matter of seconds as she straightened her spine and regarded her associate. “They’re usually not after us for conversation. Where is he?”

The Templar eyed the group warily, debating with himself no doubt, before he leveled with them. “Carver has kept this man tied up and under heavy guard for almost two weeks.”

“Two weeks?” she asked curiously. “What’s Carver had to say about it?”

“He’s not saying anything. He hasn’t let anyone speak with him- just goes in there alone for hours to interrogate him.” The man stepped closer to Margot, sending long looks for possible eavesdroppers. “People are starting to talk, wondering if the camp is safe anymore.”

He and Sebastian had been held captive as well. It had been because they were considered untrustworthy. Margot had made it pretty clear that people seeking to assist the rebellion were questioned, vetted, and released into the camp or dumped into the forest with a relative quickness. That could only mean one thing- Carver viewed this man as an enemy. It was strange, though, that Carver refused to acknowledge that with the rest of his group. This did not sit well with Fenris. The younger Hawke was bad with secrets so he must have been asserting his authority to keep the others at bay.

“If the camp were in danger, Carver would have moved it,” Margot rationalized.

“But why hasn’t he permitted anyone to talk to him?”

“That’s a good question,” she admitted before giving the Oghren a quick come hence gesture. “If you could see our guest settled, I’ll get to the bottom of this. Where is he?” Oghren shrugged rather indifferently, shifting to move toward the Templar.

“With Merrill,” the man answered as he took ahold of Oghren’s pack and hefted it onto his own back, groaning loudly as he realized the weight of it was far greater than he’d anticipated. “They’re looking for herbs to forage. I do not like this Margot.”

“I’ll get you some answers Perry,” she assured him. Once they were out of the man’s earshot, she shot a quick glance to Varric. “Carver’s usually pretty forthcoming about anyone coming into camp. This is strange behavior for him.”

“What do you think it means?” the dwarf asked with equal hush.

“Even if he were a spy, Carver would have warned us,” she reasoned as her eyes began scouring the ground. “He might have some sensitive information.”

“Sensitive?”

She didn’t bother looking up from the earth when she answered, “The single thing that’s kept us safe has been that nobody knows everything. Even my knowledge has been limited to the goings-on in three camps in the region. It keeps the damage at a minimum if anyone is compromised. After the rebellion was split into cells, only Carver and Marian were entrusted to know the movements of them entirely. I doubt even Merrill could tell you where all the bases are and she and Carver are practically attached at the hip.”

She ducked down and examined a set of tracks on the ground before commenting, “Boots and bare feet. This is them. Someone really needs to show them how to cover their tracks,” she heaved a weary sigh as she began following them. They’d been walking less than a few minutes when voices, a soft tither and an elegant tenor, came through the trees.

“Carver,” Fenris heard Merrill’s voice chime softly, “We cannot keep him here indefinitely.”

Good, it seemed everyone was on topic even if Merrill and Carver weren’t exactly aware of it.

“He hasn’t told us anything,” Carver answered back. Fenris lightened his footsteps, hoping to hear a bit more as they edged nearer. The others followed suit in near perfect harmony.

Merrill sighed softly. “Have you considered that he might not know anything?”

“Is that what you think?”

“No,” she answered. “He clearly knows something. But unless you’re willing to use more drastic measures…”

“If he’s from Wycome then he’s got to know _something_ ,” Carver retorted with a frustrated huff. “We can’t just turn him loose on the camp.”

Just as Fenris caught the two of them in his sight, Merrill leaning against a tree calmly while Carver paced a scant two feet away, Varric called, “Talking about your new prisoner?”

Carver and Merrill jolted from their private conversation, Varric’s voice shocking them apart. The younger Hawke, looking guilty, averted his eyes while his paramour beamed, “You’re back!”

Margot ignored the giddy elf and asked, “What’s going on with this prisoner you’ve been hiding?”

“Nothing,” Carver replied bluntly as he kicked at an invisible stone on the ground. “I just want to ask him a few questions.”

“Seems his guards think you’ve had ample time to ask them,” Margot pressed. Moving toward the boy, she set herself directly in front of him and asked, “What’s going on here Carver?” in a tone that heavily suggested that arguing would not be an option.

Carver bowed his head down, staring pensively at Margot’s left shoulder. After nearly a minute, Merrill spoke instead. “You have to tell them.”

“Tell us what?” Margot demanded gently.

Carver used his hand to cover his face for a moment before snaking his fingers into his hair and massaging his scalp. “I haven’t been completely honest with you,” Carver stuttered, trying to catch his words and shape them properly before his mouth just spit them out carelessly. “When my sister went to Minrathous, she traveled through the port at Wycome. She was supposed to meet up with a group of mages there, get a guide, and direct the mages into one of the eastern encampments. When Isabela told me she was going, I sent word for the others to expect them.”

Margot pulled a confused face, asking, “And?”

“They never showed up,” Carver struggled to say. “When I checked into it we learned that Marian got off the ship but never returned.” He faced Sebastian and Fenris then, explaining, “That’s why you found us at Anders’ camp- we were scouting it, trying to establish if he’d somehow taken her when you and your men blew the area sky high.”

“Wait, so Hawke is missing?” Sebastian balked.

Missing. Though he’d mastered the Common tongue ages ago, Fenris still played that word over and over in his mind, thinking there must be some definition that he didn’t know. Marian Hawke could not be missing. It felt like he’d just seen her a few days ago, fleeing into the masquerade. He’d lost her then… now it seemed she’d lost herself as well. Maybe the festival was still going, he thought wildly as he willed his stomach to stop churning, maybe she was still in that crowd… maybe she simply didn’t want to stop dancing.

Carver nodded, unaware of Fenris’ panicked inner-dialogue. “That appears to be the case.”

Fenris shook his mind free of the terrible loop it had fallen into and stuttered, “You didn’t think we needed to know?”

“Personally, I don’t think much of either of you,” Carver sneered, taking comfort once more in his dislike of the elf.

Margot interrupted before Fenris could say anything further. “Could they have been taken by the Wycome Templars?”

“It seems unlikely,” Carver answered quickly, having clearly considered this already. “If she was captured or killed we would have heard something by now. Too many people are interested in her. But if something happened in Wycome, these Templars might at least know something about it.”

“If they weren’t behind it,” Merrill inserted as she stepped closer to her paramour. “I don’t like this Carver. We should release him and move the camp.”

He turned to her and murmured, “Not until we know more. Worst case, we find out the mages are dead, pack up, and move on. Best case, we find some new allies, Marian could even be with them.”

“You cannot seriously think that’s the case,” Margot retorted, drawing the warrior’s eyes away from his lover. “She would have contacted us.”

“If she’s a prisoner, she may not have had the chance. It explains how they got so near to camp.”

“You just said you think that is unlikely. Most of the people looking for us are not our allies,” Margot coldly pointed out with the same wretched logic that echoed with Fenris.

“No. But you can’t deny that we need more of them,” Carver offered weakly. “Marian got lost in Wycome. These Templars are from Wycome. They’re our only lead.”

Margot nodded and answered, “So I’ll go…”

“No, someone needs to mind the camp and I don’t trust anyone else here. I’ll go,” Carver interrupted. “They want to meet with me alone. He’s said that much.”

“Absolutely not!” Merrill balked and withdrew as if flabbergasted that he even considered this to be an option. Oddly enough, Fenris agreed with her. This reeked of a trap and sending one of the rebellion’s leaders- and one Margot had just confessed knew more than any others save for his absent sister- into questionable territory was unforgivably foolish.

Carver reached for her and whispered, “Merrill…”

She swatted his hand away, aiming a single slender finger into his face and telling him, “I’m putting my foot down. If you insist on placing yourself in danger, you are _not_ going alone, Carver.

“Merrill…” he offered and attempted to grasp her wrist to bring her accusatory finger back down.

She shook him away once more and murmured, “This isn’t a single Templar you’re meeting, this is a group. I will not budge on this.”

“We’ve got one of theirs…”

“I said no!” she warned dangerously, setting her mouth in a grim line. “This is not open for discussion.”

The dynamic between the two, amusing as it was to see the whimsy elf bullying about the brute, was also a little heartwarming. He actually found himself rather liking the bossier, protective Merrill. Carver, whipped as he was, seemed to sense that he this was a battle not worth fighting and acquiesced to her conditions with a defeated nod.

Marian was missing and as the last person present to have seen her in their small group, he felt an unshakable desire to find her once more. If she were being held captive, rescuing her was not even an option as far as he was concerned. He owed her that- owed her much more than that. Perhaps it could even begin to heal some of the wounds between them.

“I will accompany you,” Fenris found himself saying. “If you’re thinking about converting a few allies, I could make a good argument for switching sides. If it’s a trap, I will not need a sword to fight them.” He omitted that he, too, was extremely curious as to the whereabouts of a particular blue-eyed apostate. It was safe to assume everyone knew that.

Sebastian offered quietly. “As the sovereign of Starkhaven, my presence should cause them to think twice before trying anything unless they’re prepared to swallow an army. I shall accompany you as well if you’d like.”

“Well, I’m going,” Varric chimed in casually. “Hawke will kill me if something happens to you.”

“I’m going,” Merrill added before shooting a look at Carver as if daring him to deny her.

Carver shook his head and touched the backs of his fingers to her face. “Merrill…”

“You need a mage,” Merrill explained. “If something goes wrong you need someone who can get word back to camp.”

“Then I’ll take another mage. Merrill, you haven’t fought since Kirkwall.” The boy heaved another sigh when his lover shook her head stubbornly. “This could be dangerous,” he tried once more.

“I can take care of myself. I’ve lost my clan. You and Marian are my only family now. I won’t lose you both,” she assured him, choking a bit on her last words as her eyes misted over. “Either you’ll take me with you or I’ll follow on my own but make no mistake ma vhenan, I am going.”

Carver eyed Merrill warily, assessing the sincerity of her threat, before he gave an unhappy grunt. “Fine,” he conceded, “but we stay together. No one splits off. No one goes anywhere alone, especially you.”

“Thank you,” Merrill breathed a sigh of relief.

The young Templar gave her an extremely irritated glare and answered, “I am not happy about this. Make no mistake, if you cannot follow orders I will club you over the head and drag you back to camp myself.”

“Promise?” Merrill smiled then and giggled a bit at the imagery. “I can agree to that.”

Carver grinned then as well, her satisfaction temporarily causing him to lose sight of his anger. “Alright then. They’re holed up in an old fort about a week east of here.”

Margot scowled, unwilling to disguise her displeasure at being left behind but understanding her rank in the pecking order left her little choice. “If we receive any word from your sister, I’ll notify you.”

“Until we know more, that Templar is a prisoner, not an ally,” Carver warned her. “If you haven’t heard anything from us within two weeks then dump him, pack up camp, and move. We’ll find you again.”

“Be safe,” she muttered and dropped her pack to the ground to rifle through it. After a few moments, she produced several handfuls of what appeared to be smoke bombs and passed one off to each of them. “If you get even a whiff of danger drop a few of these and get out of there. Cover your nose and hold your breath until you’re clear of the smoke. You should have about an hour before they come to.”

The boy’s eyes snapped open and he gaped, “An entire hour?”

“Marian made them- some kind of old Antivan secret recipe,” she explained with a simple shrug. “We don’t have the supplies to make any more of them right now. Consider them a last-ditch escape plan.”

“Ancient Antivan secret, huh?” Carver released a warm chuckle as he examined the devastating packet in the palm of his hand. “Big sister,” he smiled to himself, “what _have_ you been up to?”

* * *

_End of Chapter 13_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know. I’m a stinker. I’m a huge stinker.
> 
> Side note, I’ve got another knee surgery coming up at the beginning of December (same problem, opposite knee). I once again make the promise that I will try to use my convalescence to pound out some more writing but… well… Percocet is a hell of a drug. *shrug* So expect a slight delay in the next posting to be followed up with a boatload of action once I get back on my feet.
> 
> A big round of thanks to BuriedBeneath and AmericanCorvus for being totally Badass Betas. As always, thanks to everyone who reads. You all rock.


	14. Lost and Found

Nemesis  
Chapter 14- Lost and Found

“ _This is only the beginning. You shall see that soon enough.”  
Badoc_  


Fenris woke, staring up into the dark empty rafters as he wearily wiped the sleep from his eyes and quickly assessed his surroundings. Rather than his usual waking- a haphazard sketch drawn out in panic and uncertainty as to where he was… which left him nearly always having to replay the last decade or so of his life in a matter of seconds- Fenris had rather unexpectedly startled into complete awareness of not only where he was but also of the precise moment he’d been startled into.

That was unusual.

It was also dangerously disconcerting.

A quick glance around verified he was indeed in Fort Fitz, although he was fairly certain that hadn’t been the stronghold’s original name. Judging from the architecture, this was just another of countless old Tevinter strongholds that had been abandoned for centuries before being repurposed for use in the Free Marches. Everything, from the pillars to the corning stones to the furniture to the old dusty carpets, simply screamed of the Imperium’s ancient decadence. Only a Tevinter structure could still stand so strong and imposing so long after it had been lost. But that was the nature of the Imperium, it always left a piece of itself behind any place it touched- a dark stain of a reminder that tides always shifted and that the building itself was just waiting in quiet slumber for its true masters to return to the roost for good.

The small group of Templars hailing from Wycome had hosted them in this hated hovel for the past few days, kept them in this intimate dormitory by themselves, cloistered away from the others. Fenris had counted roughly twenty-five men in this battalion and they occupied only a small segment of the fortress. The rest of it had been cordoned off and sealed to protect from potential invaders. While that seemed perfectly reasonable, it was also an ideal excuse to keep the rebel party from exploring the area in full. That didn’t sit well with the elf. In fact, little of this situation did.

For all the carefully guarded discussions they’d had with their leader, a Commander by the name of Badoc, they’d come no closer to convincing the group to abscond into the heart of the rebellion with them. In actuality, Fenris got the distinct impression this Badoc was on a fact-finding mission all his own. So many words had been exchanged between the groups but while they spoke with cordial politeness there was an underlying mistrust. For each and every word spoken, there were volumes that remained behind in silent unsaid mystery. For once, he was grateful to Merrill- the elf had likely been the sole cause for Carver entering the lion’s den with an entourage instead of alone- he had to marvel a bit at Carver for that… the idea of his sister in potentially unfriendly hands made the young man far more reckless than usual.

All in all, he had the distinct impression that these men were not to be trusted. Too often conversations had been cut abruptly short whenever they approached, too many odd looks had been leveled at both himself and Merrill, and the patrols parading past their door had lingered too far long on far too many occasions. But that had not been the cause of his abrupt awakening. So what had?

It was still nighttime and by Fenris’ estimation, he’d only been asleep for a few hours. He was just beginning to wonder what exactly had roused him when Merrill released a deep moan that had Fenris slamming his eyes shut once more.

Really Carver?

The boy had never struck Fenris as being anything approaching an exhibitionist but Fenris had noticed Merrill and Carver going missing for brief periods in the night while they camped beneath the stars on their way to the meet with the Templars. Fenris wasn’t nearly ignorant enough to imagine Merrill simply fancied a moonlit frolic or rather that wasn’t how she’d convinced Carver to accompany her. Perhaps the boy’s libido had simply gotten the better of him. Carver suffered his affection for her in silence for years, which Fenris understood all to well having done the same. Had Fenris not been struck by such an adamant desire to court Marian Hawke properly, he very much doubted he would have let the mage out of bed for anything less than a month.

He waited in silence, willing his senses to block out his surroundings, but noticed his ears detected none of the other sounds he associated with sex- no accompanying groans or heavy breathing, no creaking of a bed beneath the added pressure of another body pushing into it. There was only a shifting of sheets accompanied by Merrill’s soft moaning. Daring to behold a sight he suspected might blind him, he cracked his eyes and turned his head toward the sound.

Merrill was alone upon her cot, twisting violently against the sheets. The soft, frantic sounds she was making he recognized now as not being sexual in nature. She was having a nightmare. That unsettled him far more than the possibility of her engaging in coitus less than ten feet away from him. Mages who had nightmares were generally being plagued by something in the Fade and those things could use a witch’s distress to reach out into the waking world.

Rolling from his own bed, Fenris considered for a brief moment attempting to wake her himself but then thought better of it. It would be better for her to disengage from the Fade to the sight of someone she associated with comfort. So he crept to Carver instead, jostling the other Templar from his sleep with a hushed whisper of his name.

“Carver,” he rasped, “Merrill needs you.”

The younger Hawke opened his eyes blearily, absently assessing his surroundings in sleepy confusion for too many moments before his ears too detected Merrill’s nighttime suffering. Without another word, he darted from beneath his blanket, the plates in his armor catching and dragging the sheets from the bed as he scrambled to Merrill.

They all slept with their armor on, a silent agreement that this place was dangerous and the people who hosted them were never to be entirely trusted.

“Merrill, love,” Carver cooed affectionately as he passed a hand through the mage’s sweat soaked hair, “Wake up, love. You need to wake up.”

Fenris took his distance to observe the mage’s awakening. He knew he was an unwanted intruder between the two but if something were to happen, he needed to witness it. Carver continued his gentle prodding until Merrill awoke, gasping and wide-eyed as though she’d been shot through. She shot up through her sheets like an arrow had pierced her heart- open and terrified as any child waking from a nightmare.

“We have to leave,” she gasped breathlessly. She drew her arms around her stomach in further effort to ward off her dreams. “We must leave this place.”

“We are here,” Carver whispered. “We are safe.”

“We are not,” she whispered fiercely. “This place is evil.” It wasn’t the first time she’d expressed her discomfort. It was, however, the first time she’d used that term to describe the fort.

Carver shook his head, apparently sharing the thought, and replied, “How?”

“I heard screaming in the Fade…” she moaned. “It’s in pain.”

Carver gave Fenris a desperate look but the elf could offer no answers. Danarius had professed reverence for that hated place, stating that its recognition was what placed mages above the so-called ‘ungifted.’ He’d even gone so far as saying that the Fade remembered things people had long forgotten. Anders often described his clinic as a place of healing, which Fenris figured was just an excuse to drag the party into the slum whenever anything beyond rudimentary healing was necessary. Even Hawke had described the Fade in such terms before- like it was a living, breathing thing and not merely location- but only once… when Varric pitched a job of clearing out a band of slavers that had roosted in the Foundry. As far as he knew, Marian had never returned to the place of her mother’s slaughter.

Poisoned… she’d said Quentin had poisoned the Fade and then simply refused to reenter it despite her relish for dispatching slavers. At the time Fenris had dismissed the remark- after all her mother had been brutally murdered there and Fenris wasn’t bastard enough to force the issue- but now he was wondering if she’d been talking about something more tangible than her own tainted memories. Varric in the end wisely took on the task without her. Fenris, Sebastian, and Aveline accompanied the dwarf and made quick work of the gang… the entire time the hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end. Even Aveline had commented that Hawke may have touched on some truth with her simple refusal.

But pain… Could a place even feel pain? And what did that mean for them?

“I recall rumors from Tevinter,” Fenris tried at last, “of the Fade reflecting memories of the past. Perhaps that is what plagues her.”

“It is not the past,” Merrill shuddered bodily. “The Fade feels… dark somehow,” the elf stuttered as she struggled to articulate. “It’s almost like…” Then she trailed off, lost in her thoughts as she considered them.

“Like what, Merrill?” Carver gently prodded her.

She sighed and rubbed absently at her temples before answering. “It feels like Sundermount- like there’s something very big and very evil waiting just on the other side of the Veil. Everything seemed normal enough but… now, I heard it screaming.”

“Could this be just a nightmare?” Carver questioned gently, taking care not to dismiss her. “We’re under a lot of pressure.”

“There is blood in the Veil. This is no nightmare,” she whispered seriously. “This is real. This is here. And if it is not now… then it is very recent.”

“Merrill,” Carver murmured and placed an arm around her delicate shoulders, scooting onto her cot to hold her properly, “do you know what could have caused this?”

“No,” she admitted, tucking her head into the crook of Carver’s neck. “But it worries me, Carver. Something is not right here.”

Fenris averted his eyes from the couple, understanding the intimacy was something he was intruding upon. In spite of his opinions regarding Merrill, he found himself believing her. Perhaps it was the situation itself that explained it but he noticed gooseflesh had taken to his arms. Perhaps Marian had been right. Perhaps the world shaped the Fade around it and vice versa. If that was true, then Merrill’s nightmare was the darkest omen he could fathom.

The younger Hawke entwined himself with his lover, looking up only to say, “I’ll keep her solid for the night. You should get some rest.”

The boy was right and Fenris couldn’t deny it- they were all of them lambs slumbering in the lions’ den with a single, wary wolf-in-sheepskin-gone-native. If Merrill was monitored then she’d surely make it to the morning where they could hopefully sort this whole mess out. Some sleep and sunshine could solve a world of problems. Without another word, Fenris crept back to his own cot and rested upon it, praying for a rough sleep he knew for certain would not come. Then he, Merrill, and Carver sat in silence waiting for the sunshine to protect them from the night.

* * *

When morning came and the others awoke, they had a quiet, hushed discussion as to what course of action should be taken next. Carver and Fenris had inevitably come to the same conclusion while lying awake. If something were as desperately wrong here as Merrill believed, they could not simply gather their belongings and leave without first investigating it. They’d never been given the freedom to wander the halls, which was a perfectly reasonable restriction for potentially hostile guests.

Their best course of action, it seemed, would be a bit of quiet snooping. While Fenris had a little experience with espionage, he didn’t have the true talent for it that Varric and Sebastian did. So it was decided that Sebastian, perhaps the best-known rogue in their party would feign illness that would keep him confined into their quarters and Varric would remain behind to play the role of doting nursemaid until they had the opportunity to lurk away and explore.

Merrill, while still deeply opposed to remaining here a moment longer than necessary, agreed in the end that whatever had disrupted her sleep should be investigated before they left. This meant their morning was once more spent locked in a study with Knight-Commander Badoc as they once more discussed the possibility of a mass-defection from the Templar order.

“Is your sister planning on coming to the table, Knight Carver,” Badoc asked for the first time since their arrival. Thus far, Marian had remained unmentioned by either group. Carver was concerned that revealing her missing status could compromise the rebellion and he was undeniably right. If it became known that Marian was missing or even…

He shook that thought aside. Marian was not dead. She was not staring blankly skyward, she had not been plunged six feet into dirt, she was not being digested by graveworms- those things were impossible. That woman had proven time and again that she simply didn’t know how to die. It was doubly doubtful that anyone was fully prepared to educate her on the subject.

Regardless, any queries regarding her had been dodged. The rebellion needed her to act as a beacon. And while he still wasn’t entirely comfortable sitting on this side of the table for this discussion, he was certain it would have been more awkward to sit beside Badoc- next to a man who may very well want to kill her. So he’d remained silent regarding Marian Hawke. There was no telling why Badoc had been similarly mute on the subject until now.

“My sister has been in Ferelden,” Carver answered with practiced evasion. “She’ll be happy to meet with you once she returns.”

“Ferelden?” Badoc murmured wryly. “We were under the impression she’d gone north into Tevinter.” There was a dark smugness underlying his words and it set Fenris’ teeth on edge. From what he’d gathered from Carver, Marian’s trip to Tevinter was a closely guarded secret. Fenris felt his eyes narrow slightly as he reappraised the man before him- Badoc clearly knew more than he was letting on.

Carver’s ears perked slightly despite his ears being far less expressive than an elf’s. “And what gave you that impression?”

“The rumor mills have been buzzing,” Badoc admitted with a sheepish smile. All traces of the haughtiness from before were completely gone now, leaving behind only the ghost of the memory of it having been there. “I’ve personally heard of her being sighted in more than a dozen cities across Thedas- Markham, Ostwick, even as far west as Hunter Fell. We’ve even had reports of her possibly going into Orlais around the Harvest. A mage fitting your sister’s description torched five innocent men there.”

His sources were accurate at least on that count. Blast it, Fenris had done everything he could to conceal her presence there but Marian for all her abilities to sink into a crowd still cut a striking figure, especially when she left five charred bodies in her wake. He wondered briefly how many blue-eyed, raven-haired, pale-skinned, apostate pyromaniacs with a knack for the healing arts one should expect to find traipsing around Thedas. “Your sources are mistaken,” Fenris replied instead, knowing the number to be devastatingly low. Even if Badoc had scored a lucky shot in learning that Hawke had been in Orlais, it would serve them better for him to think his sources were flawed.

“Are they?” Badoc sneered in cold calculation as he eyed Fenris. “Next I suppose you’ll be telling me it was some other white-haired elven Knight from Starkhaven who covered her tracks.”

Alright… Badoc’s sources were extremely accurate. So what else did he know?

“I would not deny I was there.” Not now at any rate, he added silently. “I was following up on the same rumors you’ve doubtlessly heard. The mage you speak of was apprehended outside Cosazure.”

“And did she answer for her crimes?”

“She claimed it was self-defense and the evidence supported that. The men were gang members attempting rape. I am rather surprised your informants failed to pass that bit of trivia along.” Fenris saw Carver’s head jerk slightly in his peripheral vision. Apparently this was new information to him and judging by the cold steel that clouded his eyes, the news of some of the very real dangers Marian faced while leading the rebellion from the shadows was not welcome.

Fortunately Badoc was turned away and didn’t catch the lapse in Carver’s mask. “They did indeed. But you mean to tell me you do not think burning five men alive to be a bit of overkill?”

“My thoughts would not change the matter as it were. She thought her life to be in danger.” Fenris himself believed that statement to be a lie. Knowing Marian’s capabilities as well as he did meant that she’d in fact been in little peril and seeing the scorched carnage she’d reduced her attackers to proved it more so. But, again, revealing otherwise would have been a misstep in the careful dance he was toeing. “I would not begrudge myself a sword were I to find myself in similar circumstances,” he finished with a succinct nod. “I am certain you too would be loath to begrudge a frightened woman the only weapon to her person.”

“Fair enough,” Badoc admitted before turning his focus back to Carver. “So you mean to say the rumors that she’s gone north are baseless?”

“My last word from her was that she was still in Ferelden. If she went to Tevinter, I’ve yet to hear about it from her.” Fenris almost grinned at Carver’s rather impressive ability to tell the truth in a way that revealed very little of it. The boy wasn’t an accomplished liar but had managed regardless to hone a different skill to work around it.

“And when was the last time you heard from her?”

“We like to keep in touch,” Carver answered bluntly, stating without words that further discussion on this subject was closed. “So have you given further thought to joining the rebellion?”

A heavy knock sounded on the door and Badoc excused himself briefly to see to it. Fenris, Merrill, and Carver were left to their own devices for the moment but in this proximity to the Commander, there was no hope to discuss the odd turn the conversation had taken in anything other than wary, furtive glances. Carver and Merrill shared a slow look with one another before Carver turned his eyes to Fenris, holding his gaze for a long moment before shaking his head to indicate his mistrust.

Fenris nodded, catching the message Carver had silently delivered. Badoc’s informers were far more reliable than they had any right to be. They needed to discover the heart of his information before they could even hope to leave.

Badoc sighed and rubbed his temples. “I am unsure I could convince the entirety of my charges to join you with what you’ve given me thus far.”

Carver shrugged indifferently, nodding his understanding that this sort of decision wasn’t one that could be made hastily. “So what more would you need?”

“Joining a movement under a mage who permitted the decimation of an entire Chantry and led the slaughter of an entire platoon of Circle Templars does not sit well with my people,” Badoc replied with a blessed bluntness.

“My sister had no knowledge of Anders’ plan and the Nullification was entirely borne of Meredith’s madness,” Carver answered in an automated drawl, indicating this was a speech he’d been compelled to deliver several times before. “Those mages deserved to be defended from being murdered for a crime they had no part in.”

Badoc gave a wary chortle. “So you say. I think it would help my men to hear her say it in person and let them judge her crimes for themselves.”

“That is not an option at this moment.” Carver ran a tired hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face to eye the Commander better. “You have my assurances as a Knight that she had no participation in the event.”

“And I should take the word of lapsed Knight leading a band of apostates and other lapsed Knights.”

Carver scowled. It was a mean, hateful look Fenris hadn’t before seen grace the boy’s face. “Our vows were to protect the people from mages and to protect mages from themselves,” he ground out. “I have kept my vows. Have you?”

“I’ve had no part in shielding apostates accused of blowing up any religious centers, if that’s what you’re asking,” Badoc retorted snidely, letting a dark annoyed look overtake his eyes for a moment before shuttering it away again.

“My sister was not responsible for that.”

“I’m afraid the facts say otherwise, Ser Carver.” With that Badoc rose from his seat and placed his hands upon the table between them, letting his imposing size accent his words. “Your dwarven friend informed a Seeker that Hawke all but announced publicly that she helped him gather the materials for the bomb then distracted the Grand Cleric while Anders planted it.”

While Fenris had little doubt that Varric had told a truthful, if unnecessarily dramatic, rendition of what had happened that wretched morning, he still found himself wishing the dwarf had toned down the truth a bit for the Seeker. “She was duped into thinking the supplies were for something else,” Carver answered finally.

“And distracting the Grand Cleric?”

Carver massaged his temples for a moment before directing his eyes back at Badoc. “She placed her trust in a man who didn’t deserve it. We’ve all…”

Badoc cut him short again with a sneered, “But she was aware he was an abomination?”

Carver swallowed visibly, likely coming to the same conclusion Fenris had in the same moment. There was little point in denying that Marian had known quite well that Anders was possessed. It was similarly pointless to claim that Marian had no idea just how dangerous Anders’ spirit of Justice had proved himself even before he’d destroyed the Chantry. Varric had doubtless already informed the Seeker otherwise- it was a story as compelling as it was damning and the dwarf couldn’t have kept it safely censored even for Hawke’s benefit.

Fenris would have to remember later to speak with the dwarf regarding the merits of half-truths and outright lies when it came to discussing the illustrious career of Kirkwall’s fallen Champion. Leave it for the final edition. Leave the truth alone until it couldn’t hurt her anymore.

“Yes,” Carver answered after a brief moment. “She believed the distinction between harboring a spirit and a demon was a factor worth considering.”

“Yes, a factor that has led to a pandemic of war.”

Carver huffed out a sigh and straightened his shoulders before beginning in a firm lecture, “I’ll remind you the Hero of Ferelden also traveled with a mage hosting a Fade spirit and I’m certain I don’t need to remind you that went rather smashingly for everyone involved.”

“Yes,” Badoc admitted before tacking on, “the Hero of Ferelden certainly had no part in blowing up any Chantries.”

“My sister has made mistakes,” Carver tried before Badoc cut him off with an angry snarl.

“Mistakes? You call the deaths of hundreds of people mere mistake?” The Commander banged his hands angrily against the table and stalked to Hawke’s brother to point an ugly, accusatory finger at him. “Her _mistakes_ , as you so casually name them, would have any decent leader turning the reins over to another. The Chantry knows about all the countless, unforgivable errors- how she released apostates and placed her trust in thieves and pirates and murderers! And now she has to audacity to beg assistance without even having the stones to face her own crimes? I’d laugh if you weren’t daft enough to be serious.”

“Watch your tone,” Carver warned, as he too rose to his feet, “or you risk this becoming an unfriendly discussion.”

“It would be in your best interest to sit down, Carver Hawke, or the dwarf and Vael will regret it,” Badoc snarled back. “Now I’ll ask you again- where is your sister?”

Fenris watched as the boy’s knees began to buckle, watched as his face took on a greenish tint as he sunk back into his chair. “What have you done?” he growled with a distinctly furious chatter in his teeth.

“Your two friends were caught sneaking about and before you think to try anything, we’ve already managed to secure them. So I’d caution against doing anything rash.” Badoc returned to his seat with a smug grin and poured himself a glass of water. “I’ve tried to be civil but if you insist on feeding me lies then rest assured, I have less conventional methods for making an honest man of you.”

Badoc smirked, leaving Fenris with an unbearable urge to beat the snide smile from his face. The elf lurched forward from his seat, tossing his chair aside to land a single blow to the man’s face before a heavy strike against his skull had him collapsing at the immaculate Templar’s feet. The room began to fade away, darkness crashing in at the edges of his vision in an impromptu nighttime, before he forced it back and let the painful anger steer his body’s vessel. His arm shot out to strike two more jabs into the Commander’s exposed midsection.

Vaguely, he felt the other man wrap his hand into his hair and direct the elf’s face up to his sneer. “Where is she?”

The hatred overpowered the wound for a moment, permitting the elf to reach up to the man’s groin and deliver a solid punch to his bollocks. His efforts were rewarded with a yelp of pain, the Commander’s face going purple as he brought his sharp knee up to slam into Fenris’ jaw. The pain barely found him for a moment before he heard the door crash open. He took Badoc’s brief distraction as an opportunity to pull the dagger from the Commander’s waist holster and press the long blade against the man’s throat.

The man, looking absolutely unperturbed to the shift in circumstances, simply sneered, “Do it and your friends die, elf,” Badoc sneered.

“Kill them and you have sentenced your men to the same fate,” Fenris spit back, feeling a thick trickle of blood leak from the edge of his mouth. Absently he ran his tongue over his teeth and was rather delighted to find none of them had broken.

Badoc threw his head back and released a hearty belly-laugh. “You know what, Fenris? I rather like you. Sitting here in my base and giving me lip- that takes balls, son. It’s a shame you picked the losing side. You would have done well here.”

Fenris gently pressed the blade closer, delighting when the skin on Badoc’s neck yielded beneath the sharp metal and bloomed a thick, scarlet line. Badoc’s eyes, however, ceded nothing- no fear, no uncertainty, no acknowledgment that his life was in a rather immediate mortal peril. It was because the man, when it came down to it, was entirely safe if only for the moment… and he knew it. Even if the rage was so cloying on the elf’s tongue, Badoc knew Fenris would not endanger the lives of his captured companions for a small, if sweet, revenge.

“This is not over,” Fenris promised and lowered Badoc’s knife from the man’s treacherous throat as he felt rather than saw the incoming Templars fasten his arms behind his back. His peripheral vision caught Carver and Merrill being similarly manhandled.

“You’re correct,” Badoc called as the elf was pulled bodily away. “This is only the beginning. You shall see that soon enough.”

* * *

There was something beautiful to be found in destruction. There was some kind of poetry in loss, in defeat, in failure. And for the life of him, Fenris couldn’t find it. They’d been dragged into some previously cordoned-off subbasement, stripped of their weapons and armors, and left utterly defenseless from the attacks that were certainly coming. Two guards stood nearby, eliminating the possibility for actively plotting an escape- the men were certainly prepared to overhear their each and every word.

“We must stop meeting like this,” Sebastian joked when he finally awoke, wincing as the movement from his words shifted the black and blue face tapestry adorning his typically pale skin. “Tell me, did they make you carry me here?” Then he broke off in a series of wet, rattling coughs. Just from the sound of them, Fenris figured the prince was nursing a few broken ribs.

Fenris shook his head rather than give a spoken response. Varric and Sebastian had been unconscious for the last several hours, though if it was from the trauma of having several angry Templars bashing their bodies for sport or some sort of poison Fenris couldn’t rightly tell. All he could discern from his position was that the bruises must have been absolute agony. The two spies-turned-prisoners been placed in a cell across from theirs and the thick bars had prevented him from inspecting the damage too closely. Upon his waking Sebastian moved sluggishly, in an almost drugged fashion. His head lolled atop his long neck, the thick muscles seeming too uncoordinated to support it properly. Even his attempts to strain against the shackles holding him in place looked weak and tired.

Varric made no attempt to move, seeming to understand by observing Sebastian that the efforts would be in vain and opting to reserve what strength he had. “How long was I out?” he asked instead, giving a cursory glance to his bare chest as he realized his state of undress.

“A few hours,” Merrill answered as she rolled her head uncomfortably against the collar clamped tightly around her neck. He’d heard of them being used in Tevinter on mage prisoners but had only ever seen them once he joined the Templars under Petra. Fenris could detect a slight waver in her tone. She hadn’t needed to voice her concerns that they would not wake- it had been a silent pact between them to not acknowledge that very real possibility. “What happened?”

Varric groaned as he situated himself into a proper seated position rather than remaining sprawled out on the floor. “For starters, there are more of them than you’ve seen.”

“Easily twice as many,” Sebastian groaned. “Possibly more.”

Varric nodded, grimacing as he brought his hand up to rub his neck. “We made it past that door on the ground level. You remember the one at the end of the great hall?” When Fenris nodded, Varric continued, “It’s not unoccupied. These people came here for a fight. They’re armed to the teeth. Carver, they’re going to take the camp. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“I already sent word to Margot to move it,” Carver answered, which surprised Fenris since he hadn’t seen the boy mailing off any letters. How were the Mage camps communicating with one another anyways? If Carver and Marian were spearheading this rebellion from such a great distance it stood to reason that there must have been some relatively secure method of communication between them. The siblings certainly weren’t foolish enough to keep mailboxes in the nearby settlements. “I don’t know where it is anymore. Won’t know until they resettle.”

“They won’t believe you,” Merrill replied quietly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Carver said after a hard swallow. “They won’t be found.”

“What about you?” Merrill asked, staring at the ground by her feet.

“I’ll be fine. They’re not going to hurt any of us if my sister is still out there.”

Fenris considered Carver’s words, turning them over in his mind until the obvious answer revealed itself. “You think they mean to use us as bait.”

Carver nodded. “They don’t know where she is and they want her. They’re aiming to knock us out with one blow. Take her out. Take me out. The rest just falls apart.”

“Would it be that easy?” Fenris balked, finding it hard to believe that the whole of the rebellion could crumble with the loss of two single, albeit very important, people.

Carver and Merrill both broke from the conversation to shoot him deeply annoyed, skeptical looks. “Of course not. Don’t be stupid.” He gave a brief wave to the room and continued, “These people are stupid. You’re not. Besides, we already have fail-safes in place in the event that anything happens to us.”

Fenris nodded at the backhanded compliment. Of course it couldn’t be felled that easily. Carver and Marian had been campaigning and networking for over a year, joining groups together and keeping them safely apart. He’d only seen one camp and there were at least five more from what he’d managed to gather on his covert eavesdropping missions. They’d amassed a number of trusted lieutenants that were doubtless prepared to take the reins. After all, this rebellion had begun with Anders… and it certainly hadn’t died with _him_.

“What if she doesn’t come?” Sebastian spoke softly. “What if something really did happen to her?”

“She’ll come,” Varric answered. “They’re counting on it. That’s why we are here, choirboy. That’s why we’re still alive.”

But they couldn’t wait. There was no telling when the dashing heroine could arrive or even if she’d arrive at all. Carver had admitted to sending word to her of their intentions to meet with these Templars but was uncertain she’d received them- she’d failed to respond to his past missives, although he was clueless as to whether she’d received them. Even if she did manage to stage some daring rescue, she would still be waltzing into the trap these men had so neatly laid out of her. The imminent threat hovering over them was all too real and if they were to escape, they’d need to do it quickly and use the advantage surprise would give them.

Fenris considered the options. Their two trusty lockpicks were disposed of at the moment- Fenris seriously doubted either were in good enough form to slip from their bonds and their current situation robbed them of the privacy needed to orchestrate any sort of elaborate escape. Carver would be similarly useless and unless Merrill was willing to break her self-imposed pledge of abstinence from cavorting with demons she, too, would be of no help toward staging an escape.

That left Fenris- a strange elf with a myriad of unusual talents that had seen him through situations such as this more than once.

His phasing ability could possibly get him past the shackles on his wrists but he’d never successfully managed to pass his entire body through anything remotely solid. The lyrium, which was the source of his unconventional abilities, was more tightly wound about his arms and legs but that meant he usually got stuck somewhere around his shoulders where his body mass was too dense to become fully unsolid. That meant while he could free himself from the chains, he couldn’t hope to get through the bars of the cell.

So he figured he’d have to find a way to convince the guards to open the cell for him.

It was doubtful a simple request was going to see that goal accomplished. After all, while these men may be stupid enough to pick a fight with Marian Hawke he couldn’t hope they’d be foolish enough to open the cell for a prisoner. Fenris also didn’t believe he had sufficient acting chops to feign a believable ailment. Even if he did, that was still no guarantee they’d consider him valuable enough to take on the risk of approaching.

Then rather abruptly he remembered a conversation he’d had with Hawke some eight years past, shortly after they’d met and before her name had become synonymous with success in Kirkwall. He’d commented, quite reasonably he felt, that Hawke could likely avoid many of her battles if she endeavored to keep her cheeky tongue to herself. Her response had been something that had stuck with him, inane and foolish as he believed it was.

“People look at me and they think I’m nothing. If I start mouthing off, if I prove to them I’m not afraid- if a lowly little woman treats them as though they are unworthy of fear… well, then they get angry. And an angry opponent, Fenris, is one you’ve already disarmed of his wits.” Then she’d shot him a playful smile and tucked her hair behind her ear. “You should try it. You’d be surprised how sloppy people become when they’ve hyper focused on just making you shut up.”

Perhaps this would be an ideal time to test that theory. He considered the two jailors keeping watch over them. Two men, both tall and well-built, having a hushed conversation about some woman with one another and more or less ignoring their captives. The catch was he was unsure which tactics, if any, would stick. He’d seen Hawke handle scenarios like this before, when she appeared to have an utter disadvantage… and the mouthy mageling would proceed to fire off at the mouth, unleashing a rapid succession of jokes, terrible puns, and veiled insults until her enemies were inspired to attack. Fenris, while admittedly being a fairly cunning linguist in his own right, doubted he’d be able to wield mere words in the same fashion as Marian’s devastating tongue did. He’d have to adapt this strategy and make it his own.

The guards were talking about a woman so that was just as appropriate place to start as any. Taking a deep breath, Fenris opened his mouth to shout, “Which of you two is the woman?”

Fenris’ efforts rewarded him with a room full of gaping mouths. His fellow cellmates stared at him as though he’d grown a second head, completely gob smacked that the elf had chosen this manner to address the guards. But the elf felt a twinge of victory as the first guard turned and demanded, “What did you say?”

Perhaps Hawke was right to utilize this tactic, he mused silently before answering, “I was merely wondering which of you was the man and which was the woman. It is a simple question.”

“Neither of us is the woman,” the second guard snarled.

“So you take turns then?” Fenris asked casually before gifting them with an unconcerned shrug. It felt odd to use the insinuation of homosexuality as a weapon, especially since it was an issue he himself had struggled with extensively once he’d freed himself from Danarius’ perversions. Personally, he found men to be attractive from time to time and, thanks mostly to Isabela, no longer begrudged himself for being sexually flexible. “Do not imagine that I would judge you for it,” he tacked on with a sly smile. “Cold nights. Warm bodies.”

“Shut up, elf.” The first guard growled before turning away and muttering, “Fucking elves think everyone’s half-queer.”

“What’s wrong?” Fenris persisted, pushing the conversation further. Seems the men weren’t rattled by that but he was still the center of their attention so he must have riled them a little at least. He’d have to aim for something else. “Forgotten how to use it?”

Sebastian interrupted with a hissed, “Maker, Fenris! Shut up!”

The second guard shot the elf a dirty look and sneered, “You should listen to your friend.”

Ignoring every ounce of common sense that told him he’d be better off for not inspiring these men to rage, he continued undaunted to the first guard. “I have heard they have salves in Antiva for it. A decent healer should be able to clear up anything physical.”

The guard approached the cell and snarled, “Trust me, elf. Everything works just fine.”

“It could be in your mind. Have you consulted a prostitute?” he continued undaunted before a wild, insane thought took roost and refused to shake free. “I would be happy to suggest a few. Although I suspect your mother would not appreciate my recommending you to her competition.”

The silence that fell over the room was so thick Fenris could practically taste it and he knew instinctively that he’d finally managed to land a proper blow. Seems the man had a soft spot for his mother. Typical.

“What?” the man ground out the syllable in one of the lowest, most hateful tones Fenris had ever been privileged to hear. “What do you think you’re implying?”

“I imply nothing,” Fenris answered with another indifferent shrug. “Your mother is a glorious whore, ser. Any fool with two coppers will agree.”

The guard grasped a heavy baton and ordered, “Open the door.”

“Mitchell,” the other tried before he was cut off.

“My mother is a _saint_!” Mitchell snarled to the elf as he gestured wildly for the other guard to get the keys.

Fenris gave the man an evil grin and sneered, “I was unaware they had a saint who utilizes your mother’s particular skills.”

The second guard shot the elf an evil look and reached first for his sword, then for the keyring, which he tossed to this Mitchell with a growled warning. Fenris fixed the furious guard with the most hateful glare he could muster as the door squealed open. The guard’s steps brought him just into the elf’s reach when Fenris put his plan into motion in a flurry of blue light.

Quickly phasing through the shackles on his wrists, Fenris heard the guard register a soft, shocked sound before the elf was fist-deep into his chest, wrenching his heart loose from the cavity. The look on the other guard’s face was nothing short of priceless as Fenris first chucked the still-beating organ directly into the man’s face before following in violent pursuit and tearing into him as well.

Fenris dispatched the second guard with little effort. The man didn’t even have time to scream. When it was all said and done, Fenris retrieved the keys from the door and set to releasing Varric and Sebastian.

“I must say, Broody, that’s the most Hawke-ish thing I’ve ever seen you do,” Varric commented as he rubbed his freed wrists. “Excepting the whole ‘magic fisting’ thing obviously.”

“Obviously,” Fenris agreed with a droll eye roll as he set to unbinding Sebastian while Varric stumbled to Carver and Merrill. “We should depart.”

“Get it off,” he heard Merrill growl as Carver bent before her and fiddled with the keys, trying to undo the collar. “Get this thing off me.”

Carver groaned and pulled the key ring away. “None of these fit. It’s got to be on Badoc’s keyring.”

“We need our weapons if we’re to have any hope of escaping,” Sebastian reminded him, pointing to a heavy chest sitting on the opposite side of the room. “Naked and unarmed is no way to enter a fight, friend.”

“Can you open it?” Carver inquired as he rose to his feet and inspected the keyring in Fenris’ hand. “None of these will do it. Badoc must have that too.”

Sebastian shook his head with a muttered, “They took my picks. They’re likely in that very chest.”

Varric made a short, disgruntled sound and grumbled, “Amateur,” before plopping onto his rear. Turning his hairy foot over, he began kneading the heel until a small sliver of metal manifested from the callous. “Keys are for chumps and lesser suckers,” he grinned and strode stiffly by the prince to settle before the chest.

“I’ll have to remember that trick,” Sebastian mused with a quirk of a smile.

“They may take your clothes but they never take your skin,” the dwarf answered as he began manipulating the lock with a low curse. “Shit, I hate people who have the good sense to invest in security. This will take a minute.”

Naturally it took well beyond a minute. Fenris spent every second of it staring at the staircase that would take them from this blasted place, dreading the moment more of their captors could manifest before they were sufficiently armed. He’d seen no patrols thus far and there had been no changing of the guards. They’d been shackled here for nearly the entire day…

Fenris felt dread pool in his stomach.

Certainly someone should have come by now… to check on them… to make sure Varric and Sebastian had not succumbed to their injuries.

While he knew very little about the routines these men held, that had to be uncommon. He’d been held prisoner before- once when he’d made the mistake of trusting a mercenary who proceeded to sell him out to the nearest group of slavers and once again in Kirkwall when an ill-advised bender coupled with Isabela’s larcenous nature landed them both in lockup until Marian and Aveline came to spring them. Guard rotations staved off boredom and hunger- kept them from making the very sort of mistakes that had taken the lives of the two men he’d just dispatched. Those men should have been relieved from prisoner detail hours ago. So why hadn’t they been?

The most logical answer was that the Templars were occupied elsewhere. They couldn’t possibly be launching an attack on the rebel camp- the fools hadn’t even bothered asking Carver where it was. So what had occupied the fifty-plus Templars so thoroughly they ignored the five extremely hostile captives sitting just below their feet?

This did not bode well with him.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the heavy clunk of the lock falling away from the chest, ignoring his paranoia as he dressed himself in record time. As much as he disliked the armor Danarius had fashioned for him, he still welcomed its embrace… for everything terrible and wretched Danarius had been, he’d at least had the sense to invest his money and research in Fenris’ primary source of protection.

He shot another wary glance at Merrill. While she was once more clothed she would still be helpless in the oncoming fight so long as that collar remained around her neck. There was a small comfort to be taken in that she was skilled enough with her staff to bang around a few Templars. Now that he thought of it, with her history of blood magic this might be an unexpected blessing for her- there was no opportunity to crash back into her old habits. She’d have to adapt. Fenris was unexpectedly certain that she would rise to the challenge rather than buckle beneath it.

With Carver taking lead- he still found following behind the boy to be a little disconcerting- they ascended the stairs to determine exactly what was going on here.

The first thing he noticed when they charged into the great hall was the plethora of Templars, all lying still and prone in a variety of uncomfortable positions. Fenris approached one face-down upon his supper plate and discovered him to be snoring into his mashed potatoes. Touching his fingers to the man’s exposed throat, he felt the man’s pulse beating strongly, albeit slowly.

“Poison. It does not appear to be lethal,” he announced the obvious as he surveyed the bodies once more and noticed the soft risings of their chests. “It seems they’ve had rather an epidemic of it.”

“Explains why the guards never switched out,” Carver added with a thoughtful nudge against one of the sleeping men’s boot. A small grin stole over Fenris’ face, apparently he and the younger Hawke had thought on that and come to the same conclusion. The last year out of his sister’s shadow had seen the former soldier blossoming into a formidable ally with a mind every bit as sharp as Marian’s.

Varric made an annoyed sound as he shoved one of the Templars out of his chair and gave the unconscious man a rather unceremonious kick to his groin. “That’s for touching Bianca, you prick,” he grumbled before turning to Carver and asking, “Could they have triggered one of Hawke’s smoke bombs?”

“I doubt it,” Merrill answered quickly. “They stink something terrible. Marian washed her robes five times before she gave up and threw them away- said she couldn’t always count on being downwind.”

“The blue ones?” Carver inquired. At Merrill’s nod he added, “I’d wondered what happened to those.”

“The ones with the gold embroidery on the shoulder?” Varric asked. When Merrill nodded once more, the dwarf sighed, “I liked those. They looked good on her.”

Fenris smirked to himself as he remembered that particular set of robes as well. He’d silently questioned whether they’d been designed for protection or if they were just meant to draw the eye directly to Hawke’s backside. Being a dwarf, Varric likely spent more time staring at Hawke’s bottom than any of them. It seemed he and Varric agreed that those particular robes would be sorely missed.

Merrill huffed in a rare display of annoyance. “Is this truly something we should be discussing right now? Shouldn’t we…”

Merrill didn’t get a chance to finish her statement. The door leading to the rest of the hold simply exploded inwards. Fenris didn’t even have time to shield his face from the incoming debris, bringing his hands up too late to stop the sharp splinters from blasting against his face. When he brought them down, Fenris gaped as five abominations barreled in, homing in on the group in hateful fury.

Sebastian and Varric began firing wildly into the oncoming attack. The arrows sticking into misshapen heads and chests did little to slow them, appearing to be more an annoyance than an actual deterrent. Fenris heard Carver draw his sword and charge forward. He and Merrill followed suit although the mage was forced to fight defensively, her primary mode of attack still inaccessible to her.

Fenris pulled his muscles tight, feeling the world once more slow around him as the lyrium bit its sting into his skin. He ghosted across the room, slicing his sword into one of the monsters, neatly severing both arms from its torso is a spatter of dark blood before hacking into its neck once… twice… three times before the sword managed to cut through its spine and an additional three times before the skull lolled from its shoulders.

Demons.

This place was overrun with demons.

What the blight was happening here? Was this the source of Merrill’s strange premonition?

The Knight-Commander had insisted there were no mages here but it was increasingly evident that the man had lied about that as well. Another Abomination barreled down upon him but Fenris only managed to land a single blow before the creature swept passed him and set its gnarled claws into one of the unconscious men, tearing him open and apart before Fenris could even think to defend him.

He looked over the situation once more, realizing the abominations were not targeting Merrill… nor were they focusing their limited attentions on Sebastian and Varric or even himself and Carver. They were putting all their effort into attacking the unconscious Templars, ripping the helpless men apart with a furious gusto.

The lyrium flickered and went out as he tried to reconcile the scene. Abominations attacked everything but it still stood to reason they should attack their most imminent threat first. Apparently, they viewed the poisoned Templars as greater threats than the five people actively fighting them.

The others appeared to notice this as well, holding their weapons fearfully.

“What is going on here?” Carver marveled and gazed with open disbelief at the scenario playing out before them. “Why aren’t they attacking us?”

“Let them play,” a dangerous deep voice echoed through the carnage. “My darlings deserve a little fun.”

They skittered to a stop and looked back, confronted with a Desire Demon resplendent in her full form… heaving breasts, the stiff back, that playful come-hither gaze. He assessed his surroundings, logically as he knew to do. Fenris gazed upon the hated beast with all the contempt he’d grant a street urchin.

“The Veil is ripped,” Merrill hissed to them. “It’s bleeding out into reality. Stay strong.”

“Meaning?” Varric requested as he brought Bianca up to his shoulder.

Fenris knew exactly what she was saying; he’d seen it in Minrathous a dozen times before. “She means we’re half in the Fade,” he growled and eyed the demon, “And so is that thing.”

The demon considered Merrill for a moment and murmured, “So pretty but so collared- I could break it for you.”

Merrill eyed the demon for a long moment, seeming to contemplate the offer before Carver called her name, dropping a heavy hand onto her shoulder. The elf dropped her head, raising her hand up to twine their fingers, and whispered, “I’m fine. I know enough of these things to know a bad deal when I am offered one.”

It snarled before turning her sultry gaze on Fenris and purred, “And you… You don’t belong here.”

Sebastian let loose a low, menacing growl and answered, “He belongs here.”

It ignored the prince and persisted, “You’re looking for something. What if I could offer you what you seek? What if I told you your search could finally be over?”

Fenris felt the demon’s allure wash over him, the thick syrup coating his mind in sticky sweetness. The damning thought that it could be that simple, that unbelievably easy, was all it took for the poison to take hold. Before Fenris could form any sort of reply, he saw the world and his companions swirled away in thick Fade mist… and standing in the middle of the clearing was a lone, dark-haired figure…

* * *

… Marian. Against all reason and possibility, she was standing before him. Close enough that he could take a few short steps and touch her. The tableau of the masquerade in Lydes faded in and out around her, pulsing softly with the same music that had been so jarring and loud when he’d found himself in the thick of it. She was garbed in the same deep red robes she’d been wearing when circumstances collided them together once more so many months ago.

“Fenris!” she called with no little concern, wide blue eyes sweeping across the landscape of smoke and mirrors. The festival had clearly disoriented her, half formed bodies slamming into her and causing her to stumble clumsily as she failed to steady herself against phantoms she couldn’t properly fight. “Fenris, where are you?”

“That’s not Marian,” he growled at the demon doubtlessly watching them, desperately seeking a way to exit the illusion he’d fallen into.

“But it is,” the voice rasped directly into his ear, causing it to twitch uncomfortably from the staggering heat of the demon’s breath. “It is her as you’ve always wanted her- lacking the one thing that’s always kept her from you in truth.”

He didn’t have to ask what that thing was. The mirage of Marian chose that moment to demonstrate as she attempted to summon a wisp of light in her hands to illuminate the area. Nothing happened, not a spark, not even a fizzle of energy was conjured into her waiting hands. She stared at them, first in abject confusion before something very unsettling took over her gaze. Fear. Her chest heaved faster as panic began to set in, puffing out fog as her warm breath collided with the cold air.

“You lie,” he retorted, ignoring the mirage of his former lover in distress. “You cannot remove a mage’s magic.”

“Do I?” it wheezed into his mind and directed his gaze back to Hawke, tripping blindly through the mists, calling his name with increasing franticness. “The Fade is stronger than her magic here. As long as she remains here, you’ll never have to fear that part of her.”

“You lie,” Fenris repeated.

“What is fantasy but a lie we tell ourselves?” The demon chuckled her cold laughter against his brain and continued, “But that isn’t what you want, is it? Or it simply isn’t all you want. Maybe something a little different?”

And before his eyes, the scene dissipated, the Harvest masquerade disintegrating into the thick Fade before a new vision replaced it. And Fenris was no longer observing her through the mists of the party but in Marian’s dark, fire lit bedroom at the Amell estate. The bed, more imposing than he remembered, now stood center-stage. Fenris braced himself as he waited for what was doubtless coming next.

There stood Marian, clad in something silk and fragile, breathing unsteadily as Sebastian stood behind her, letting her body conceal his naked frame. He smoothed his palms over her arms. The sight of the prince’s lips on her neck brought a pang of sickness into his stomach. He’d admit to occasionally being struck by Sebastian’s regal sort of beauty, the way the prince moved with such surety had more than once set uncomfortable arousal through the elf before he could squash it back down. But Sebastian was the closest friend that Fenris had ever known and the sight of his hands on Marian, rather than inspiring arousal only managed to inspire a fervent desire for the image before him to cease. The elf drove his nails into his palm, frantically reminding himself that this was an illusion and nothing more. Marian wasn’t here- she was somewhere out there in the wilderness.

Sebastian brought his eyes up to meet Fenris’ and murmured, “No, of course not, you’d never share her this way. Something a little different, friend?” And his strong body shifted, shimmering away until manifesting into something a little more petite, with calculating dark eyes and light hair.

Margot raised her eyes to him, glittering with mayhem, and smirked. “Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about it. I have.” She stroked her fingers over the mage’s face and murmured, “She has.”

He didn’t answer, just watched Marian’s eyes slid closed as she leaned back against the taller woman. There was no sense in denying it- the demon had indeed stumbled on something he’d been desperately trying _not_ to think about. He forced his eyes shut just as Margot’s hand moved to cup one of Marian’s breasts, doing something that made the mage gasp and then moan. Fenris didn’t think it was possible to be so sickly aroused by something he knew to be wrong… but there it was, straining against his pants in a frantic effort to join in the scene his imagination had written after Margot’s half-confession.

“Come on, Fenris,” Margot cajoled in a husky murmur. “It’s no different than those two girls you had at the brothel. You’ll recall they seemed perfectly satisfied with the arrangement.”

The visuals of that memory swam unbidden into his mind, shocking him back into the thick of the Fade. Although at the time he’d been perfectly content to allow himself the entertainment of the two rather flexible young women, they hadn’t been friends- they’d been prostitutes. He did not know them as he knew Margot and Marian- he knew them in no context other than sex. In light of this situation, with the ghost of Marian standing before him, that night felt rather base and quite perverted. This was not something he could imagine from Margot, who apparently had her heart a little more wrapped up in Marian Hawke than she cared to admit. And Marian… this was not something he could picture himself wanting of her.

This was not what he wanted, he repeated to himself. Or rather, to take the demon’s words as his own, it was not _all_ he wanted. He forced his breathing back into an even tempo and shuttered the sick arousal that threatened to take him further into this scene. He kept his eyes shut as one of the pair of women released another soft gasp. He would not be duped. He would not play into this.

“Or perhaps something a bit…” The voice shifted from Margot’s low rasp into something much lower, “…closer to home?”

That voice…

No.

His eyes flew open and there was Danarius, holding a delicate golden chain wrapped tightly around Marian’s neck in his clenched, clawed hand. Danarius had always been a perverted bastard and the chains coiled over her naked breasts and hips, tying her up like a glorified body slave, testified to that. She teetered, tears streaming down her face, as his former master jerked his wrist back and drew the chain hard against her throat. When had she begun crying? How long had his eyes been shut?

Her frightened eyes peeled open wide as she struggled to breathe, her hands clawing mindlessly at her neck to ease the deathly pressure. This isn’t real, he repeated silently himself as he watched her choke. This could not be Marian.

“A gift to you, Fenris,” Danarius sneered, releasing the apostate only to shove her to the ground. She landed with a pained yelp, which Fenris felt echo in his own knees, scrambling away for a moment before his master dropped the chain and permitted her to claw once more at her throat. “A pet for my pet.”

This isn’t real, he kept telling himself. But that thought didn’t stop his breath from coming faster, his heart from pounding in painful rage, and it didn’t stop the terrible sound of her strangled sobbing. If this wasn’t real then why was it still happening?

Unless it _was_ real.

“Thank your master.” With that, Danarius delivered a sharp kick to Marian’s side, sending her flying across the floor with a strangled cry. She landed at the elf’s feet, tangling his hands in a weak grip as she sobbed, “Please, you have to make this stop!”

“What’s wrong, lad?” the magister sneered as he bent to stoop behind her. “Do you need a demonstration?”

He was all-too familiar with what would inevitably happen next when he saw Danarius lift his robes and clap a possessive hand over Marian’s rump. She screamed his name, her high panicked wail shattering the still air. Logic flew the way of the wind as Fenris reached for his sword and shouted, “Let her go!”

He was on the magister with his next breath, hacking into his body with unbridled fury. Danarius went down without even a token fight but Fenris still relished in the opportunity to murder his master a second time, swinging harder, cutting deeper over and over again as he mutilated the man who’d hurt so many and hurt them so badly. He was barely cold and dead when he dissolved back into the Fade’s miasma, leaving behind Marian- still choking on her tears as she looked up at him in watery wonder.

She was safe. He’d protected her. But as he looked down upon her, saw the tear-streaked pathos that was so vastly different from the woman he’d known for years, and knew for certain he’d been deceived.

Of course the demon hadn’t been Danarius, he realized dully as his true enemy cowered before him. It was all another smoke and mirrors attempt to engage the elf, to lure him into a fantasy until the demon finally found the one that could tempt him away from the truth. It wasn’t the cloying allure of power that he desperately craved, which had set him to succumbing to a demon’s clutches once before. It wasn’t even Marian, he realized as he stared at his former lover not as the woman who’d had countless foes trembling at her very footsteps but as some mythical, shackled animal cowering at his feet… telling him something he’d never had the ability to face before.

He wanted to be a hero.

Just once he wanted be the hero instead of the shrieking ingénue in distress. He wanted to break from his past and save the innocents, save the girl, save the day.

But he couldn’t do that here- locked in a world of fiction.

This wasn’t real, he repeated again to himself. Marian had never been in danger, had never been here at all. He’d saved no one, not even himself, from his twisted dead master. Armed with that, he could see the demon’s countenance masking itself within the lines of Marian’s body- could see a flash of horns through her dark hair, a twinge of grey scales breaking along the soft flesh of her side, eyes that blazed black at random intervals through blue sky.

Then it was gone and she was Marian again, looking up at him with confusion apparent in her wet eyes. “I called for you,” she whispered, reaching a hand out to touch the scarf tangled around his wrist. He shut his eyes as she tugged against it, gently pulling his attention back to her. “Where were you?”

It would be easy, he thought as he looked upon the thing disguising itself as the object of countless dreams, so easy to fall into the illusion, to have a mirage of her that would shift to accommodate his every whim, that would be whatever he wanted whenever he wanted her to become it. But it wasn’t what the demon had unwittingly revealed that he truly wanted. It was just another form of slavery. If he accepted, he’d once more be stepping into the cage, locking the door, and tossing the key himself. He’d already done that once and knew the horrors that would follow… and even if he’d lacked the ability to understand them as Leto, he certainly understood them now as Fenris.

And the real Marian Hawke was still out there, doubtless doing things that would inevitably infuriate him beyond words- making rash decisions, trusting the wrong people, helping people who didn’t deserve it. She was being hunted.

And she believed in him once. In spite of everything he’d done to her, Marian Hawke had believed in him when no reasonable person should have… believed he could be the man he desperately wanted to be.

“I have been looking for you,” he answered gently and stooped next to her. Her arms opened to him and against every bit of him that was screaming for him to withdraw, he entered her embrace, wrapping his arms around her tightly. She even _smelled_ the way he remembered, he thought as he buried his nose into her hair. He allowed himself this weakness, one final opportunity to hold her in a way he likely never would again.

It would be easy, so easy to stay here.

After a lifetime of hardships and failures, it was hard to deny himself a simple comfort. He deserved a bit of happiness after the life he’d led, a bit of easiness after so much strife. It would be easy to look the gift horse in the mouth and ignore the poisoned apple clenched in its snarling, decayed maw.

It could be so easy…

But it wasn’t what he wanted.

He unwound his arms from her and stood, the chains bound around her prevented her from rising with him. She gave a serene smile, all traces of her sorrow erased from her suddenly immaculate face. His hand found his sword, feeling its comforting weight in his hands. The steel was real. This was not. And there was only one way to end it.

“Forgive me,” he whispered, more to himself than to her, as he dared to stroke his fingers across her face, watching her turn into the caress with a soft, comforted sound…

Then he drove it down into her chest and felt the world explode. He saw ivory particles of sand banging against the seawall and burst into nothing… saw clouds sucked from the sky… saw the universe shatter … accompanied by the sound of terrible, inhuman screaming that he’d never know for certain came only from her.

* * *

The illusion shattered around him like rock thrown into a hall of mirrors, bits and pieces cracking and falling away, and suddenly he was standing, panting with exhaustion with his sword deeply embedded in the demon’s chest.

“I gave you everything,” it snarled, blackened blood spilling from its sharp teeth.

His head bowed as he considered its words. “I would rather suffer reality than shackle myself to an illusion of happiness,” he answered before calmly withdrawing his blade. “But as a demon, you could not possibly understand.”

He whipped the sword around once more, this time at its neck- felt it connect and cut through the sinew and spine before passing through the other side in a spray of gore. As he watched the head roll across the ground and the corpse disintegrate into ashes, he remembered that he was not alone.

When he turned to find his companions, he found them gawking in blood-spattered shock. The abominations lay dead, corpses littered over the bodies of the men they’d slain. The sting of bruises informed him rather abruptly that he had indeed fallen into the stupor, fighting when he had no mind of his own to do so. Fortunately no one looked terribly worse for it. They’d pulled their punches. It was uncertain that he’d have done the same were their positions reversed.

“It appears I forgot myself,” he offered lamely as he fastened his sword once more to its bolster. “You have my apologies.”

It was Merrill who found her tongue first. “You found it again. That’s all that matters.”

“Right,” Carver agreed warily. If the boy had a further thought on the matter, he chose to keep it to himself. “Let’s focus on getting out of here.”

“We have to close off the Fade,” Merrill interrupted. “A rift this massive will have more demons clamoring to get in.”

“How would we do that?” Carver asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Perhaps someone back at the camp could tell us.”

“But where did they come from?” Sebastian interjected. “They said no mages were being kept here- so how is this place crawling with demons and abominations?”

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that maybe, just maybe, they were lying,” Carver answered with unbridled annoyance.

“Shouldn’t we focus our efforts on finding them? There may be a few that are uncorrupted. Perhaps there are even a few survivors that could tell us what is going on.”

“He’s right,” Carver grumbled with a furious shake of his head. “Dammit, he’s bloody right. Stick together, we’re going to have to search this place top to bottom. Fenris, you said this is an old Tevinter stronghold, right?”

Fenris nodded, “Indeed.”

“Do you think there are any secret rooms?”

He considered for a moment. Tevinter architecture didn’t utilize secret passages as much as, say, Orlais’ did. Still they were no stranger to doors concealed behind bookshelves and the occasional secret passageway. “I would recognize any hidden passages if I were to see them.”

“Good. Take point,” Carver instructed before adding, “I want to know if these bastards are hiding anywhere.”

Fenris nodded and took the lead without another word. The next three rooms were unremarkable, save for the dead Templars littering the floor and one hidden alcove holding a number of books. Regardless, the carnage that had taken place here was nothing short of astonishing. The abominations had positively ripped these men apart. It was, to steal Badoc’s word, overkill. Though they may have been monsters, they’d come after these men with a focused rage Fenris had never an abomination display before.

It was off the kitchens in one of the larders that Fenris found anything of note, although it wasn’t exactly hidden any more. They all noticed the back wall of the pantry had been blasted apart, its tattered remains on either side revealing the dark passage.

“Well that’s ominous,” Varric remarked and clutched Bianca a bit more tightly as Fenris grabbed an oil lantern and led the way within.

It was a small, stone room- well-insulated by the rock to ensure privacy. The stench of blood and bile was nauseating. Manacles covered the walls, Fenris recognized the method as being native to Tevinter. This in all likelihood had originally been intended as a slave hold. But when he saw the stains of blood, the ripped scraps of clothing, and the red, sharp knives fastened to the wall, he knew it wasn’t one any more.

It was a torture chamber.

“Ma vhenan,” Merrill murmured her horror, doubtless realizing this was likely where Badoc intended to interrogate Carver.

“Maker preserve us,” Sebastian whispered as he surveyed the area with dull shock.

Fenris saw a bright swatch of fabric, mostly intact, and brought it nearer the light to study it. He could feel the magic woven into the fabric and deduced that this had originally been part of a set of extremely expensive robes. But that wasn’t what caught his attention… it was the stitchwork. Fenris was no stranger to sewing, he modified his armor whenever the opportunity presented itself. Robes in the south used relatively simple stitching, usually done with simple cotton lines. Tevinter thread, he’d cursed that blasted gossamer more times than he could count- it’s soft, spiderweb quality was practically invisible to the eye and nearly impossible to run through a needle.

Tevinter thread was also obscenely strong and Fenris knew when he saw the clean stitching shining intact between two rent pieces of fabric that this robe hadn’t belonged to a southerner. “These prisoners were from Tevinter,” he said quietly. A very uncomfortable feeling of pity came over him.

Danarius had a room like this.

Fenris did not care to think of the unspeakable horrors he’d seen in there. No information was this valuable. Nothing justified this. Even if they had been magisters and blood mages, Fenris would have preferred to see them quietly executed rather than held in a terrible limbo they’d been subject.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Sebastian groaned. The man had to be considering the implications of he dead abominations above them. One thing was certain- before they left, they needed to conceal any evidence of what happened here or risk the wrath of the Magistrate.

“They saw a chance to escape and they took it,” Carver muttered. “I’m feeling a little less sorry for the men upstairs.”

Fenris noticed Merrill was visibly shaking, eyes locked on a single collar lying broken on the floor. Furious tears welled up in her eyes, leaking over to trickle down her cheeks. “Excuse me,” she whispered before tearing back into the kitchen with Carver and Varric close on her heels.

When they were alone once more, Sebastian muttered, “What do you think they knew?”

“I do not know,” Fenris answered. “Perhaps they were going to the camp.”

“Fenris,” Sebastian began. “Starkhaven does not have an army that could take on Tevinter. If they find out about this…”

“I agree,” the elf replied. “But I wouldn’t approach Merrill or Carver with that now. We shall stay behind if necessary and…” Fenris swallowed, forcing the saliva around the rock that had settled in his throat, “… clean house.”

He heard Carver shout from above. Without another word, the pair wielded their weapons and charged toward the sound. Another abomination flanked by two demons had found the interlopers.

The abomination bore down on Merrill, who looked every bit a deer caught in a hunter’s sight for a moment before she brought her staff up and thwacked it heavily over its huge, snarling head, startling it into a brief recoil. Before Fenris could get to her, fireballs blocked the beast from its prey and someone in dark rogue’s armor materialized in front of her and, taking the long, bladed staff from his back, began hacking into the charging beast. Fenris’ sword was stayed as he watched the intruder’s movements… he was using a staff but not in any way he’d seen before… the man was wielding it as though it were a sword rather than a magical instrument- there was no mana being dispatched with the blows.

Another dark figure appeared, this one making no compunction of her magic. She threw fire, caused the earth itself to quake, summoned ice from the scant water particles in the air to encapsulate and imprison her foes before hurling them backwards in a beautiful symphony of blood before tearing into the demon.

Marian used that technique often. She’d called it Shock-and-Awe. Varric simply titled it her Die-Shitheads spell. Before he could dwell much on the memory of her, he noticed the garb covering their two unexpected allies. There was too much distance to notice anything as minute as stitch work and the masks concealing their faces revealed no expression… the emblem blazoned on the robes told him everything he needed to know.

“They are from the Imperial Chantry!” Fenris shouted his warning. The Imperial Chantry… they’d come looking for the lost mages they were currently battling. Maker, there was no hope to hide the bodies now unless they were willing to bury a few more.

Sebastian shook his head as though attempting to shake the mirage from his eyes. “What are they doing here?” he cried, worry clearly etched into every syllable.

“They’re helping us,” Carver snarled back and clutched his sword tighter. “We can deal with the politics later!”

Carver threw himself into battle and the others followed in rapid succession. The three enemies were finished in short order with their temporary allies. The female focused on keeping the demons at bay whilst the man twirled his staff with a precision that was as deadly as it was non-magical. When it was all said and done, the five of them were left warily eying the Tevinters and the Tevinters regarding them with a similar guarded curiosity.

The man of the pair stared blankly forward, evaluating them with a cold calculation. The woman eyed them thoughtfully, cagily even, as she shifted uncomfortably on her toes- he could sense the latent magic emanating outward to assess the threat and instinctively he opened his senses to reach back… but he recognized the smell and taste of it… this was no blood mage, this was a healer… moonflowers and ember, fire and thunder…

And it froze him in his tracks, mentally asking three lonely syllables. Carver, too, was similarly still, though Fenris couldn’t know for certain if he was asking himself the same question.

The illusion was over, wasn’t it? He’d defeated the demon… struck her down through the artifice that vile thing and stretched over his mind. This couldn’t be another layer of the fantasy that had pulled him in so thoroughly. His mind felt perfectly clear, cleansed of its evil influence… so that could only mean one thing.

Marian…

“What are you doing here?” Sebastian demanded as he raised his bow and aimed a single arrow at the man. Before he had a chance to fire, the woman threw a wave of energy at the prince, knocking him from his feet and clear across the small room. The arrow pinged into the rafters, dislodging only a small wave of harmless dust.

“Well Sebastian, nice to see you too.” the woman muttered to the prince before forcibly removing her staff from one of the demons’ backs with a dull thunk. Pulling the cowl loose from her face and pushing the hood from her dark hair, their unexpected savior revealed herself to be none other than Marian Hawke, returned to her flock at last.

* * *

_End of Chapter 14_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back from hiatus and completely up on Ao3! Surgery went fine (with a few minor snafus) and I’ve managed to beat real life into submission and get this sucker out. Thanks to everyone for your patience and words of encouragement as I worked through my recovery and my horrible work backlog.
> 
> As always, thanks to my gorgeous betas, AmericanCorvis and BuriedBeneath, for catching my various spelling errors and for all their support.


	15. Homecoming

Nemesis  
Chapter 15- Homecoming

" _I know you already took a Vow of Chastity, Sebastian, so how about you try your hand at a Vow of Silence?"  
Marian Hawke_  


When did everything fall apart?

She had been beyond tired when she'd returned to the mage encampment; ready for a solid night of sleep before the mandatory briefing Carver was certainly waiting to give her. So her surprise at hearing the news that her brother had gone to meet with a group of Templars from Wycome was genuine, especially since her veiled warning had in fact directly told him not to risk engagement with this particular group.

She'd been there less than five minutes when she learned of her brother's madcap quest. What the Blight had he been thinking? Had she not worded her warning strongly enough or had he simply decided he wanted to evaluate the risk himself? And why in the name of all things sacred had he decided to go and take Merrill of all people with him?

Then the terror had come, full and blind as it always did. Visions of Wycome, of Lydia and the others… all of their screaming faces replaced with that of her kin. She'd already lost Father, lost Bethany, lost Mother… she couldn't lose Carver. That wasn't fair. There was no way she would permit anyone to steal her brother away from the waking world as well.

Margot had been off leading some tracking exercises with some of the other Templars. Marian hadn't even bothered to wait for her to weigh in on the situation or to offer any sort of assistance- there was no time to consult the other woman directly. If Carver was ambling into these men's clutches, then time was already deathly short. Margot's new job was to move the base somewhere safer and, thankfully, Marian didn't have to be there to tell her as much.

There was no telling what sort of information Maison could extract from her brother, no telling how many Templars could be on their way before she could even hope to get there. She watched the group commence their frantic packing with dull dread pitting itself deep in her stomach. There was no telling what could happen but she already had a heaping dose of suspicion as to what was awaiting Merrill and Carver. Her return was concluded with a frantic passing off of Owen and a barked command to relocate the camp as quickly as possible. When she'd placed the boy into another mage's hands, the elf simply began screaming, reaching out for her and crying her name over and over again, tears streaming down his red face as he worked himself into a brilliant fury.

If something happened to her, she was certain Owen would be integrated into the camp- the rebellion was disinclined to turn away strays, mage or otherwise. As much as she tried, however, she couldn't push that memory from her mind as she and Tobias raced to Fort Fitz at a breakneck pace.

This wasn't happening, she kept repeating to herself as she and Tobias tore through the daylight and into night over and over again. This couldn't possibly be happening. But it was happening and for all her frantic wishing, she was a mage and not a genie. Carver had a six-day head start on her and the fort was roughly seven days by horse- so Carver would beat her there, barring any unforeseen circumstances that will have slowed him down. To date, she still had no idea how long she'd been held captive by Gerard but one thing was certain, every second she wasted was precious time that her brother may not have… and Merrill was bound to have much, much less.

There was a sliver of hope. Carver and Merrill had taken three others with them. In her haste, she hadn't bothered asking who they were. To her, they were just three more people who could help defend Carver and Merrill. If Maison saved Carver for last, made him to watch the slaughter of his party the way he'd forced her to do, then perhaps if she was fast enough she could save at least him. But if something happened to Merrill, Hawke knew for certain that Carver would never forgive her.

Hawke and Tobias made it there in four days. Hawke refused to rest, refused to stop unless her steed was wheezing and stumbling. During those brief periods of rest, which to her felt all too long and the horse certainly felt to be overly short, she couldn't bring herself to sleep. Her nerves were burning, alight with dread that refused to be lulled into slumber, leaving her with this lasting sense of queasiness.

With sleep inaccessible to her, she chose instead to plot.

It was suicide, she instinctively knew, to charge into a Templar headquarters and face this particular bevy of enemies head-on. It was not just mere suicide; it was also _incredibly_ stupid- especially if they were holding the party captive. These men's allegiance with Maison was not yet written in stone but she knew she had to prepare for this meeting with that possibility thoroughly accounted for. A frontward breach could be ended with a single command to slaughter any prisoners. Then she'd be captured. That simply would not do, could not happen. She wasn't prepared to face Maison again but the circumstances that brought her ever closer to Fort Fitz told her that her personal readiness wasn't exactly something she should count on waiting for.

So her options were limited. Attacking directly was out of the question and subterfuge had never especially been a strong suit of hers. She'd never had a reason to attempt to wipe out a large group of Templars before. Fortunately, she'd known one man who had- who'd created dozens of plans to accomplish that very deed. The translated copy of his journal had been left on the _Veiled Blue_ and now it was gone, never again would she set her eyes upon it. However, there was one tool left in her arsenal- her memory. She'd poured over his journals for countless hours in a frantic attempt to reconcile the heinous Templar Solution with the man who'd crafted it.

Anders had always been the superior alchemist; she wasn't yet foolish enough to convince herself otherwise. There was just no substitution for a bona-fide Circle education paired with their resources. But Hawke, as Anders had commented countless times, had a tack-sharp mind and what she lacked in basic potions-making theory she made up for in intuitive leaps. So when she'd come across a scrawled missive in the margins denoting the effects of magebane on lyrium addicts, she'd mentally filed that particular gem of information away with the confidence that at some point during this wretched war it was bound to come in handy.

Lo and behold, she was absolutely right.

Apparently, while magebane had rather serious consequences for mages, its effect on Templars was more like that of a powerful sedative. It was a correlation she'd never made herself but one that still made complete sense- lyrium was a conduit for magic, ergo something that would interfere with a mage's abilities should also have an effect on someone addicted to the stuff. She'd rifled through her pack and found a few reagents that could craft the poison before she haphazardly mixed them together.

If she'd crafted this whilst she was apprenticing under Anders, she had little doubts that he'd be hiding in a corner and shrilly questioning whether she intended to destroy all of Darktown. She'd always rolled her eyes and called him overdramatic when he put on such a display. Really, one extremely _minor_ explosion and Anders was terrified of letting her mix anything. Besides, it had only damaged the door… and those bookshelves… and that table... okay, maybe it minor wasn't precisely the right word. Still, she couldn't have been the only person who'd ever confused elfroot with deathroot and it had been just _one_ time… well, twice if she counted that other time, but nothing had exploded then.

Anyways, it wasn't like she hadn't paid to have it all fixed.

"Maybe I should just turn you loose on my storeroom and see how long it takes for you to build me a brand new clinic," Anders had grumbled once the repairs had been completed. At the time, Hawke suspected he was only half-joking.

Six years… had that really only been six years ago?

She forced further thoughts of Anders from her mind. Dwelling on the past would do her no good here. After a few botched attempts, though those were thankfully lacking any fireworks, she managed to craft a half-decent poison. While it lacked the precision and finesse of the concoctions she'd mixed under Anders' careful eye, it still had that same familiar stink that told her she'd made proper work of it. Having never had any reason to craft magebane before, she felt this to be a major accomplishment.

Once they'd arrived at the fort, it was a simple matter of sending Tobias in to dump the venom into the water supply. For everything that made her entirely uncomfortable about Tobias, she had to admit the man had a disturbing knack for vanishing while still being wholly visible; several times she'd been startled when she'd turn and find him standing directly behind her. That was something she'd never noticed about Tranquils until spending the better part of the last weeks with one- Tranquils couldn't be sensed the same way she could sense other mages. The Fade was blocked from him, inaccessible in every way. The one time she'd decided to reach out with her mind to find him, instead of feeling the Fade being restrained, she felt nothing more than a black hole, sucking in the Fade around it- suffice it to say, she did not attempt it a second time.

Poisoning the water supply of Fort Fitz had taken Tobias less than ten minutes. When he returned, she hadn't even bothered asking if he'd been noticed. He hadn't. Tobias was really only noticeable when he chose to be so. It was just another aspect of him that, while both dark and terrifying, was also proving incredibly useful.

Based on Anders' notes, she had figured the poison would need several hours to take, which was a blessing as it meant there would be a wider dispersion of the toxin ingested before anyone was the wiser. She'd figured by the time night took its full hold most of the Templars would be incapacitated. Any that remained would doubtlessly be found in a state of hopeless confusion. That would make them easier to take down. If luck was on her side, she may not have to kill anyone.

She wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that.

They hovered at the edge of the woods, safely housed within the cover of trees, while Hawke's stomach churned, nerves mixing with bitter bile, and waited impatiently for night to fall. Twilight had barely descended when she realized something had gone horribly wrong; when a series of small explosions illuminated along the upper windows for only a second before the glass exploded outward and hailed onto the dirt below.

"Move!" she shouted, but Tobias was already sprinting from the woods and toward the massive structure. It had taken precious minutes to break down the massive iron door to the fort, minutes more to strike down the single confused sentry. It wasn't until she entered the Great Hall that she realized what an unbelievably stupid error she'd made.

She hadn't accounted for mages. In all her furious, frenzied plotting, she'd completely forgotten that mages could be held captive here… and they'd obviously taken the opportunity to strike down their oppressors in so much blood-spattered gore. It was an unforgiveable error to say the absolute minimum. While Carver and Merrill still resided within, potentially incapacitated without hopes of defending themselves, this turn of events sent her into an even greater panic, if that was even possible.

Unwilling to think too long on the very real consequences this could hold, she immediately located the dungeon and, finding only two dead guards there, raced back into the foyer until the sounds of battle made their way into her sensitive ears. Tobias had made it there first, shielding Merrill from one of the charging abominations as Hawke took the opportunity to rain hellfire over it.

Merrill was safe, she kept repeating to herself as she focused on decimating her enemies with the entirety of her abilities. Her reserves were already spent when Carver's voice reached through the din and into her tired ears. Another silent thank-you was sent to the Maker before Hawke thunked the blade of her staff into another wretched beast's skull with a life-ending finality, the woman unbelievably tired and almost inhumanly exhausted.

It wasn't until then that she noticed her brother's company. She'd only stayed in the camp long enough to hear that Carver and Merrill had taken a small entourage with them to this wretched place. It never occurred to ask whom they'd taken. Varric wasn't a surprising addition- if something horrible was happening, the dwarf was almost guaranteed to show himself.

But Fenris? What was he doing here fighting alongside her brother? Her memories of that warm cabin nestled in those cold woods came flying back at her, the memory of running from him in Lydes… and the nightmare that had come next when she made port in Wycome. Had Isabela been right? Should she have waited? Had the paranoia that sent her tearing into the night been just another grievous blunder?

For everything that made her want to believe she'd been right to run, him standing here, covered in blood and fragments of bone, brought that decision into serious question. It seemed like everything was brought into question as of late.

Fortunately, Sebastian broke that train of thought with a shout and a raised weapon. She blasted the prince backwards before he could unleash another strike against her- only this time is was an physical arrow aimed at her head instead of a metaphorical knife plunged into her back. Realizing a moment too late that her armor marked her as an Imperial stranger, she untied the cowl covering her face, stating simply, "Well, Sebastian… good to see you, too."

Hawke could not bring herself to resist smirking as Starkhaven's regent stumbled gracelessly to his feet and regarded her with such miserable confusion. Certainly, she hadn't _needed_ to knock the man down quite so hard but she would not deny relishing in having the opportunity to do so. She hadn't thought much on Sebastian since that day in front of rubble that had once been Kirkwall's Chantry- actively defied thinking about him in fact.

"Hawke?" The prince winced as he rose to his feet. Covered as he was in what had to be seriously painful bruises, Sebastian Vael certainly looked like he'd seen better days. "It's you."

She was almost startled by the wave of anger that washed over her as she regarded the man she'd once considered a dear friend. After everything she'd done for him, after everything they'd been through together, after they'd spent hours together at those dreadful, stuffy balls in Kirkwall and made fun of everything from Fifi de Launcet's wretched hats to Seneshal Bran's peculiar choice of company. After _everything_ , he'd turned on her like it was the easiest thing in the world, like the history between them meant absolutely nothing, like the world was a simple black and white with no shreds of grey to taint their ideals. Maker, the world was just a haze of uncompromising grey now- any space for absolution was covered in that ugly monochrome fabric.

The crushing, overwhelming desire to close her fist and bash it into the prince's face was stayed by Merrill's delighted cry. "You're back!" Merrill beamed, rushing forward to crush her in a fierce hug, "We were so worried! Where have you been?" Hawke's arms automatically rose to embrace the elf before she felt the heavy collar on the other woman's neck. Startled, she drew away to inspect Merrill's face. "Marian?" Merrill finally asked, startled into question by the apostate's peculiar actions.

No brand, Hawke noted clinically. Thank the Maker- Merrill had been spared. Without thinking, Hawke brought her hand up to stroke the side of Merrill's face- the side that she'd feared would bear the same mark Hawke's did. Part of her wanted to cry then, not from relief but for the incredibly selfish, horrible part of her that desperately wanted not to carry the burn alone- the part of her that needed someone to understand what happened to her without her having to actually talk about it.

But Merrill had been spared and that would be enough. Marian's suffering was unshared and she'd be happy for it. No one should have to suffer Gerard Maison.

Merrill's face took on a look of confusion. "Marian?"

Wait… Merrill had asked where she'd been. "What do you mean, 'Where have you been?' I've been in Tevinter. I told you as much," she answered bluntly, dropping her hand from the elf's face. She dared a glance at Carver and asked, "Speaking of that, which part of 'Don't trust anyone from Wycome,' did you fail to grasp?"

Carver gave her an odd look and replied, "The last I heard of you was from Isabela. She told me she put you on a ship heading into Minrathous. Then you got off in Wycome and never got back on. What happened, Marian?"

She closed her eyes, felt Hoppers resting against her skin and let him calm her from the anxiety that threatened to overtake her. Now was certainly not the time to discuss everything that had happened in Wycome. "I got pinned down by a group of Templars and missed the boat. I ended up on another." Knowing Carver would not let the matter end that easily, she turned to Fenris and asked, "What about you? Did you receive my letter?"

Fenris tilted his head slightly and answered, "You wrote?" Green eyes narrowed slightly, although if it was confusion or calculation she'd never been able to rightly tell.

Ripping her gaze from the elf and forcing her roiling emotions back, she faced her brother again, letting her voice fall back into cool professionalism. "How long have they been with you?"

"The better part of three months," her brother replied.

Three months, she'd sent off her correspondence from Minrathous nearly a month and a half ago… the carrier birds were fairly quick, usually taking no longer than a couple weeks to reach their intended targets. While it was possible one of the birds could have been waylaid in Tevinter for a multitude of reasons, it was extremely unlikely that both birds would have failed to get there unless…

… unless someone had been intercepting the letters.

"Have you written to me?" she inquired of Carver.

"Several times," he answered. When Hawke shook her head, indicating that his correspondence to her had similarly been lost, her brother paused, coming to the same conclusion she just had. "Oh shit… Marian, we've vetted all the Templars."

She turned her gaze eyes back to the prince of Starkhaven and grumbled, "Yet I find you standing here with two men I wouldn't trust any farther than I could throw them."

"Hawke," Sebastian stuttered, "I would _never_ …"

She cut him off with a snarled, "So a 500 gold dead-or-alive bounty is fine but Maker-be, _mail-tampering_ is strictly forbidden by your bizarre moral code? Is that what you mean to tell me, your highness?"

Sebastian's head fell and he made no effort to defend himself.

Carver whipped his head and his blade to face the lapsed priest and growled, "You put a bounty on my sister's head? Dead or alive?"

"He did," Hawke replied, giving Sebastian the nastiest glare she could possibly muster. Tobias and she had run into them nearly the instant they'd set foot in the Free Marches… those bastards had nearly taken Owen's ear with one of their stupid arrows. Then she had been left with the unenviable task of explaining that the men hadn't been slavers with Tobias' translations, although the boy remained somewhat unconvinced, still certain that the men had been there to take him. "There were two groups looking to take it," she concluded, "we fought one and ducked the other- they seemed rather keen on the 'dead' part. I'm only letting you know because it is likely going to come up again."

"Explain yourself," Carver demanded of Sebastian as he brought his blade closer to the prince's neck. Fenris made a move as to step forward but Sebastian bade him off with a long look. Interesting… seems Fenris had gone from Little Wolf to royal guard dog; she really shouldn't have been surprised.

"Allow me," she interrupted before allowing her native accent to take on a pathetically phlegmy mimicry of Starkhaven's brogue, "You see, I have a grudge against the woman who avenged my family and helped pave the way for my return to Starkhaven because I am a pompous, arrogant dick."

Merrill's squeaked once before stifling her giggles. Varric snorted, attempting to disguise his chuckle with a sudden bout of feigned coughing. Her Starkhaven accent definitely needed work, not that she cared in the slightest at the moment.

Sebastian sighed heavily before responding. "I was angry, Hawke. I withdrew it after speaking to our Knight-Commander. Obviously they'd already left the area when I took the notice down. I'll send word to Starkhaven to have the matter sorted out."

Her eyes rolled almost of their own volition. "Pardon me for not holding my breath," she sneered, not even bothering to hide her immense irritation at this sudden turn of events, "but don't you think you could sort this out more quickly if you did it in person? You know," she added, "in Starkhaven?"

"Sister," Carver interrupted before the prince had an opportunity to answer her implied dismissal, "a word, please." He escorted her to the corner of the room, just enough distance where a hushed whisper wouldn't be overheard clearly. "We need him," he told her bluntly.

She deadpanned, positive for a moment that her ears had betrayed her as well. "Need him? For what," she asked, desperately veiling how deeply dumbfounded this whole situation had made her.

"Starkhaven is a powerful ally," her brother explained with an uncharacteristic patience. Even after they'd reconciled and united to spearhead the rebellion together, Carver and Hawke still usually resorted to shouting matches when they were at odds. After all, old habits die hard. "I'm sure I don't need to remind you that we don't exactly have a lot of them."

"We don't need allies who are going to turn around and stab us in the back!" She'd aimed her voice at the prince and increased her volume for those last words, making damned sure Sebastian heard them. The man winced but resigned himself to saying nothing yet again, apparently content to let Carver fight this battle for him. If it was even possible, his silent countenance made her angrier.

Carver shook his head, drawing her attention back. "He's seen Anders. He knows the threat that's looming over Starkhaven. I don't think he would compromise that. Margot and most of the others are already onboard."

She scoffed, still unwilling to believe that her brother of all people was telling her to play nice. "So I don't get a say in this? He betrays me, tries to kill me, and it's all 'bygones-be-bygones' now because he's got a big army and we don't?"

"Be sensible. Try thinking of it this way," Carver compromised, "if we keep him close then at least we know what he's doing. We'll discuss it again once we're back at the camp but for now, he's staying."

She glared her unreserved anger at her brother and returned the gaze with a nod of miserable understanding. He understood this was difficult for her, she knew, but seemed confident that this was the most prudent course of action. Little as she liked the current situation, she wasn't running the rebellion alone- for that at least she was incredibly grateful. Regardless, she stormed away from her brother, letting him trail behind her, and announced to the prince, "Well, since I clearly don't get a say in how things are running here, I guess you're staying for now."

"Hawke," Sebastian started, "I know you're angry…"

She cut him off with a declared with a painfully feigned cheeriness, "I know you already took a Vow of Chastity, Sebastian, so how about you try your hand at a Vow of Silence?" The way his jaw snapped shut with a soft clack nearly scored a chuckle from her but she was far too furious to let him score any sort of points with her.

"Hawke," Merrill interrupted before the quiet could become too awkward, "do you feel the breach?"

Hawke took a moment to close her eyes and urged her mind into stillness until she felt the Veil, ripped as Merrill told her, and felt the screaming fury on just the other side. That explained why she'd felt so horrible in this place, discomfited beyond what her nerves had already inspired. She noticed rather abruptly that Hoppers felt warm against her chest, hot even. Bringing her hand up to cloth that concealed where the pendant lay against her skin, it was obvious that wasn't just an imagined sensation. She could feel the heat against her fingers. Hoppers was reacting to the Fade. That did not sit well with her.

She heard Tobias reply with a simple, "Breach?"

"The Veil's ripped," Hawke explained, dropping her hand from Hoppers and dismissing the warmth. She'd think more on it later. "Anyone else who comes here is going to be a sitting duck for demons and the like."

Merrill pressed on, "Do you know any way to repair it?"

Hawke shook her head no before turning to Tobias and saying, "Well, Tobias, you're my resident expert on all things evil and terrifying. Any advice?"

Tobias considered for a moment… or at least she thought he considered. Even without the mask covering his face, his dead eyes made it fairly difficult to pinpoint what was going on in the scholar's head. His body was unusually still, even for him, as he thumbed through his mental inventory, searching for a solution to her query. "Generally," he answered at last, "the best way to alter the Fade is to alter the world around it. It's not always effective but it holds the best chance to closing a rift."

"Meaning," she asked with a dull dread as to exactly where this conversation was going.

"Destroy the building and with some luck the rift will be destroyed as well."

She took a moment to take in the room they were currently in. This place had to be centuries old if not much, much older. "What can we hope to do that time has already failed to accomplish," she mused aloud.

"Time didn't have Drakestone and Sela Petrae," Carver answered quietly, so softly in fact that she had difficulty hearing him until the syllables pieced themselves together in her ears and set her jaw to dropping.

"You're kidding," Hawke replied bluntly as the implications of his words. "You're joking right?" When Carver shook his head, Hawke released a long, angry stream of profanity before finishing with, "Are you fucking _insane_? How are we supposed to convince the Chantry that we didn't have anything to do with what happened to Kirkwall's Chantry if you're waltzing around carrying the Blighted bomb that did it?"

Varric, Fenris, and Sebastian all snapped their heads toward Carver, who kept his gaze evenly upon her. How could he even think about doing something like that? Between her mental discomfort stemming from the Fade and her brother's incredibly foolish actions, a headache manifested, throbbing against the backs of her eyes.

"Calm down! I'm not carrying a fucking bomb," Carver snapped before adding, "Just the components."

"Just the components? _Just the components_? Are you fucking stupid," she screeched before she turned to the others and demanded, "Did anyone of you even know about this?" The others only shook their heads dumbly. It appeared even Merrill hadn't been clued in to this abysmal plan.

However, Carver's diplomacy had its limits and being called stupid tended to throw him straight past them. He gave something like an angry snort and snapped, "Oh, like you were completely honest before you went to the Frostback Mountains to fuck your boyfriend?"

"Watch it, Carver," she heard Fenris growl somewhere behind Merrill's startled gasp.

"You stay out of this," she snapped at Fenris, even as she felt the blood start rushing to her face. Maker, he'd gone and _told_ everyone? At least now it was out in the open but she couldn't deny that having that night phrased so indelicately brought a very real pang of shame. Redirecting her focus on her brother, she ground out, "It is complicated. Do not presume to understand my relationship with him."

"I understand that you roll onto your back every time he drops his pants," her brother sneered back.

She heard Merrill cry out something but it was lost on her ears as she lunged at her brother, striking out with her fists as she was so disinclined to do. This day had been so hard, so unbelievably long, and the opportunity to lash out at someone, _anyone_ , was almost impossible to resist. Even if it was the one person she'd worried so thoroughly over, that made the release almost better… because she'd suffered so much anxiety on his behalf and he had the nerve to show up completely safe and then be a complete ass on top of it. Her nerves had been humming for the last several days, bottled up so precariously that nearly anything could have set them to boiling over- that something happened to be her complete twat of a younger brother.

Carver retaliated beautifully, punching her once in the stomach before she managed to kick him solidly in the groin. Then she bowled him over in a rough tackle, tumbling the two of them inelegantly to the floor. They rolled across it, neither keeping the advantage for more than a few seconds as they continued bashing their fists against each other. Merrill was screaming for them to stop but both were content to ignore her. Marian landed a few quick jabs against her brother's jaw before he landed a solid open palm between her breasts, directly against her sternum, and knocking the breath out of her.

"You little shit," she wheezed painfully, "you're stealing my moves now, too?"

Soon as the words were out, she felt his retaliation in the form of blows against her face. Her eye socket exploded in pain. Her nose gushed blood. Blast it, her magic may have rendered her into the larger threat between the siblings overall but when she was willing to abstain from its usage, Carver undoubtedly had the upper hand. He'd always been the stronger physical fighter- sure, Hawke could hold her own against most of the people she was likely to come up against but Carver wasn't just anybody; he was a trained soldier and a Templar to boot- he hadn't been born a fighter but he'd managed to craft himself into a remarkable one.

She hadn't been born a fighter either, she realized rather abruptly. Anders had made her one. Kirkwall had made her one. Poverty had made her one. Father had made her one. Her head pounded harder, she heard demons hissing at the edge of her mind, egging her on into an even greater fury.

Not now, she wished frantically. Maker, not now.

She groaned, wincing against the headache and the bruises as she futilely tried to force her mind back into stillness while still raining her fists down onto her brother. She felt completely out of control, spinning wild circles in the pitch black her mind kept trying to drag her into. She was overwhelmed with the unshakable compulsion to break something, to obliterate anything, to tear down the pillars that upheld her, to destroy, decimate, ruin, wreck…

_Breathe, Marian_ , she heard, _you have to breathe._

And with a sharp intake of air, it was all over. Her mind went mercifully blank, cleansed of the rage as abruptly as a sandcastle submerged in the waves. It was disconcerting. She felt dizzy. Her face throbbed with the beginnings of a brilliant bruise. But it was okay now. It was over.

Strong hands grasped her about the waist, lifting her like a ragdoll off her thrashing brother. The brief skirmish ended with Fenris and Sebastian physically prying the siblings apart, Carver still swinging at the air in a futile effort to land the final blow. She felt Fenris pulse the lyrium against her stomach once as he wrapped his arms around her and hoisted her from the ground to pull her farther away- a warning. She didn't fight him, didn't help him, just let him drag her. When her feet touched the ground again, she just sagged back against him, her mind and body utterly drained as the physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion from the last several days finally caught up to her. She felt his arms clutch around her midsection more tightly, clearly preparing for her to make a break for it.

Neither he nor Carver made any effort to activate the Silence, both of them apparently knew that this battle wasn't meant to inflict any permanent damage- they believed that it was a simple, angry rage that needed to be vented. But it wasn't simple and it wasn't just rage. They didn't know that there was a poison somewhere in her that just wasn't passing. What was happening to her?

Merrill's uncharacteristically stern voice brought her out of her thoughts. "Stop it! You two are acting like children," Merrill scolded as she placed herself between them.

Carver fell still, shoving away Sebastian as the prince lowered his arms. "She started it," Carver grumbled angrily.

She snapped her head up at that and retorted, "Did not!"

"Did too!"

"That's enough!" Merrill barked the command in such a manner that had both Hawke siblings snapping their mouths closed and staring guiltily at the ground. She felt Fenris' arms fall from her waist but linger, stroking his palm over her hip in a way she wasn't entirely certain was accidental. "Now you two are going to apologize to each other and then you are going to blow up this building and then you are going to check up on the camp and then we are all going to save the world and _you will like it!_ "

"Yes, Merrill," Carver answered dumbly.

"Of course," Marian answered simultaneously.

"So go make this bomb and stop your whining," Merrill growled.

Marian grabbed her pack and strode into the other room, she didn't have to look back to know that Carver was hot on her heels.

* * *

Marian and Carver spent the next two hours crafting the bomb in silence. Carver had brought Anders' journal and was consulting it step by painstaking step. Her own had been a copy, she'd transcribed it herself as she poured over each and every page, trying to make sense of the senseless, trying to reconcile the man she'd known with the man who'd so thoroughly violated her guileless trust. Her reasoning had been simple- there was just too much information for one person to take in and Carver's perspective, while tainted with his inherent dislike of the author, was a valuable one. She'd decided the original tome was too valuable to risk losing and bade her brother to keep it safe. Now her own copy was gone, the inherent sin washed away with the seas of ocean and blood somewhere outside Wycome. Sometimes she really hated being right.

They were in the final stages of crafting the bomb before she had the gumption to ask, "Did that seriously just happen?"

He'd just set the hourglass, gifting them with a few moments of glorious impunity, so she used the opportunity to clear the air. The number of times she and Carver had come to blows could be numbered off on one hand- once when she'd carelessly made fun of his obsession with Peaches, again when he'd stormed into the Amell Estate and blamed her for Mother's murder, and just now. The awkwardness was palatable… and she didn't need that right now. She needed Carver, needed her brother back, needed to know that even if they were each of them loath to verbally forgive each other, the blood-bond between them couldn't be broken from a few angry bruises and bloodied noses.

Carver withdrew from the concoction- it would need several minutes to set before it would be ready for administering the Sela Petrae- and he chuckled. "I've wondered myself if blood-magic may have tempered her mood a bit. She's far more stubborn than I ever gave her credit for."

He met her eyes and gave a soft grin. She sighed gratefully and returned the gesture. He'd chosen to interpret her words to regard Merrill instead of their fight. They were okay. All was once more quietly forgiven and forgotten.

"Maybe the demons calmed her," she mused. "I don't know."

Carver sat back on his haunches, letting a whimsy expression grace his face. "She's a piece of work, isn't she?"

"Yes. Yes, she is," she replied, crossing her legs to sit more comfortably on the floor. Carver had always asked her how she could bear to sit like that. She wasn't sure, maybe it was all the dancing she'd done in her youth, but she was always more comfortable sitting that way. Robes made the position more difficult, binding her thighs lest she hike up the skirts and flash her undergarments to anyone in the vicinity. Her Imperial armor, little as she liked it, involved pants, so the position was much safer.

Carver leveled his gaze at her and asked, "Why didn't you tell me?"

She sighed, feeling the headache start up once more before Hoppers heated against her chest. Then it was gone again. Why hadn't she told him about Fenris? For the same reason she wasn't telling him about this. Their relationship, while stronger now than it had ever been, was always going to be a finely crafted, fragile thing. Her own mental state, questionable as it may be, sought to foster it as best she could. The rebellion had few allies, Carver had bee right on that point. She, it seemed, had even fewer… and she couldn't bear the thought of losing Carver again.

"I can't keep my head straight around him," she stuttered, hating herself for the weakness of her words. "It just… happened. I don't think there was any rhyme or reason to…"

His head bowed, the sudden move shocking her tongue into stillness. What had she said wrong? Her brother considered his hands, calloused and vicious as they'd been so recently, and replied, "I mean with Anders."

Dread crept up on her, sending her stomach to turning. "Anders?"

"I know, Marian," he answered softly, "I know you killed him." He reached out to her hand delicately. It was a move she immediately identified with mistrust. But there were no misgivings to be found. Carver had blindly revealed his hand, outstretched to her, questioning, waiting for an honesty she'd selfishly kept from him- honesty that could have spared Keili and saved Enid… yet another horrible mistake on her part. His face wasn't accusing or angry, just dolefully sought some sort of reason from her… an explanation she couldn't rightly give. She couldn't excuse keeping her part in Anders' current state secret.

Now the sin was known. The deed was done… or botched at the very least. That particular weight lifted away from her chest. Yet he still looked at her with the naïve hope she'd come to expect from him. Carver had always been a bit of a dreamer, as much as he tried to deny it. Now he was locked into the battle of wills she'd inadvertently lured him into. She felt the carpet dragged from beneath her, wished the sky would reach down to swallow her up as it had so many years ago. There was no answer she could form, no justification, no defense that would pardon her dreadful omission.

Still, she tried- choked out half-syllables and half-words that meant nothing at all- until Carver interrupted her stammering. "I'm not…" he started but then backed off before trying again. "I never… I didn't."

She twined her fingers with his and uttered, "Just say it, Carver."

"I get…" he murmured, "I know I haven't always been there for you but I'm here now, Marian. I'm never going to fawn over you like the mages- fuck, I don't always even like you- but please don't doubt that I'm here."

"Carver…" she started.

"Don't think you're the only…" he started but paused for a moment, like he had very suddenly reevaluated his word choice, before he just dropped his head and stated, "You're not alone. You don't have to shoulder this alone, Marian. I just want you to remember that."

"I…" she stammered, completely at a loss for words. Shame brought her head down to regard the ground, she'd come into this conversation from a position of undeniable weakness… but Carver was forgiving it. They said grace found the sinner in unexpected places; she supposed this was just one of them. Finally, she answered, "Thank you, Carver," and squeezed his fingers affectionately.

But she was alone, she knew. No one could understand what she'd been through. Maison had left no one alive who would. She hadn't suffered the same torture the others had. She wondered for the first time if the bastard's punishment had ultimately been for her to survive, broken and terrified as she'd never before been, forced to carry a permanent memento of her catastrophic failure to save those she'd sworn to protect.

"You don't have to tell me about Wycome," Carver said… like he was ripping the thoughts straight from her mind. His eyes shifted from hers to move slightly left, to the scar that would forever mar her face. Of course he'd noticed it, probably noticed it the moment she'd opened the cowl to reveal her mutilated face. She felt her lip quirk at that, accenting the healed wound as she knew it would. Carver was far more intuitive than he played and as a soldier, he knew such an injury, while physically mended, might never fully heal. "But if you want to talk about it," he finished as he brought his eyes back to hers, his candor open and on display for her scrutiny, "I'm here, Marian."

She flexed her fingers around his more tightly, answering only, "Thank you." She felt another heavy breath leave her. Even if Carver wasn't demanding an explanation, he needed at least to be told the framework of what happened in Wycome in order to better protect both himself and the camp. "There was a Templar in Wycome named Gerard Maison. They stormed the house the apostates were hiding in," she swallowed then. "He killed them all, Carver. He just… I don't know if he was acting under orders. I don't know if he's affiliated with these men but when I heard you'd come here…"

"You thought it was a trap," he supplied. When she nodded, he snorted, "You were right. I'm just glad you showed up when you did. I rather like living."

She didn't bother telling him that dying was only a small part of the reason she'd been so terrified, that mere death had been a simple relief Gerard reveled in denying his victims. Her brother had given her the chance to say nothing and that was something she wasn't prepared to speak to yet. The scar itched and she absently scratched at it, surprised that for once that the motion actually soothed it. There was a trace of wetness in his eyes as he disentangled their fingers and rose from the floor, knees creaking against the movement. Maker, they weren't exactly children anymore, were they?

"Timer's up," he said with a forced nonchalance. "Back to work."

"Yes," she agreed. "Let's blow this place sky-high and then finish saving the world."

With earnest, if slightly cautious grins, they set back to work.

* * *

It was hours later when the bomb was completed. At some point, Fenris and the others had excavated the rest of the fort and found the key to Merrill's collar, as well as several other useful items. As much as she adored Merrill, she couldn't bring herself to overly care. Nothing of note had been discovered and Maison hadn't been here- Merrill's whole condition had inadvertently told her as much. The entire party now gathered to look upon the bomb with a perverse sort of fascination. Fine as she'd felt after her conversation with her brother, a sickness came over her as she looked for the first time upon the final product. It looked harmless, looked like it was just a small package of vials and nothing more.

It was so much more than that. It wasn't just a bomb. It wasn't just the machinations of a madman reaching out to scorch everything she touched. She understood that she was looking for the first time upon the mechanism of her ultimate demise, the thing that had torn her entire world asunder while a mad spirit laughed at her confusion.

She ducked her head, looking away from the device, furiously denying her foreseeable fate. This was the thing that would inevitably kill her. This was the unforgivable sin she'd inadvertently partaken in. This was innocent blood and panicked screaming and unbridled terror. This was the fire and brimstone she could expect on the other side. This was every bit of what she'd endured in Wycome, meted out senselessly against people who just wanted to live their lives. It was as unexpected as it was terrible.

She understood now why she'd been so furious at Carver for carting around the ingredients for this unholy concoction with him. It hadn't destroyed his life; he'd had his own life apart from her. This… this thing represented everything she'd suffered since Kirkwall. It represented the betrayal of her trust, her startling naivety, the lost innocence she so dearly missed, the odd torture, the inherent mistrust, the wretched paranoia- it all sat here benignly before her, waiting for her to activate it and render a different building to ash and rubble.

She looked at Anders' journal, clutched in Carver's arms, staring in hopes that the closed leather cover could offer her some reassurance. Had it been so simple for Anders? Had this been an easy thing to do? The journal never deemed to give her a proper answer.

After several long minutes of silence, Carver spoke her name. "Marian…" he said, "Merrill can do this. We can…"

"I have to do this," she whispered before taking the book from her brother, stroking her fingers over the worn leather cover. "I know we're here because… I know you hated him but…" and she choked, trying to stifle back the sob that threatened to break free, "I just need a moment, please."

"Hawke," Varric tried before Carver cut him off.

"Take all the time you need," her brother murmured, coming forward to give a strong squeeze to her shoulder. "We'll be just outside."

"Thank you," she answered, feeling that numbness she'd come to expect when it came to her dealings with Anders. It was her burden. This was her weight to bear.

When they'd gone, she felt her knees give, collapsing to the floor as she took Anders' journal into her lap, stroking her fingers over the worn leather cover before opening it to the dog-eared passage she'd read hundreds of times before. _A mage came into the clinic today_ , it read. _Cheeky little chit's got her mind set on excavating the Deep Roads. Shame, she's really quite cute._

Their first meeting… it felt like a lifetime ago. He hadn't trusted her at first- years of running had honed him into a man who'd learned to believe little and chance even less. After everything that had happened with Karl, she was beyond surprised that Anders decided to accompany her into the Deep Roads. Maybe he'd done it to spite all his misgivings. That was just the sort of man he was, she'd supposed- someone she could count on to put his personal feelings aside to work for the greater good.

Or so she'd thought.

It was all here, she knew, scribbled in this flowing, elegant script- the day they'd met, the day he'd offered to teach her what he knew, the day he'd finally managed to wrangle a half-decent healing drought out of his clumsy apprentice. Anders wrote about her with a frustrated fondness, documenting each success and failure, detailing his annoyance at her naivety regarding the corruption of the Circles and whimsically recalling his own all-too-brief innocence. Anders had just wanted to be free. Now he was trapped in an altogether different way, his corpse hosting a monster he, too, had trusted.

Maybe they weren't so different. Maybe they were both haunted by something no one could rightly explain.

She'd spent most of her spare moments in the last year reading her copy of this book not to learn more about the mechanics of what he'd done but to try and divine just what had driven him to it. But there were no answers to be found there… just the fervent ramblings of a mage increasingly unhinged from the real world, the insane strategies of the very man who'd taken her under his wing and turned her raw talent into a craft the envy of other mages, the same man who turned in those lonely woods after the obliteration of Kirkwall to see the tears in her eyes as she gripped the knife in her quivering hand and simply whispered, "Marian?"

"You don't get to fight with us, Anders," she'd answered with tears welling up in her eyes, "And you don't get to be a martyr. You're a monster."

His eyes flattened with a look of resigned understanding. She saw him watch her hand shake against the butt of the blade, causing it to waver in the air, a one-winged bird working up the courage to fly far, far away. He'd strode toward her, coming closer until the point of the knife touched his chest, bringing one hand up to cup her wrist and stabilize it. "It's okay, Marian," he'd whispered, using his free hand tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I understand."

"It isn't okay," she'd choked out and brought the knife down, unable to keep it stable without his gentle hand to steady it. "None of this is okay."

Anders had shushed her and taken her into his arms, holding her gently as he was so careful not to do. He'd only held her this way twice before- after she'd confided in him what had occurred with Fenris and again after her mother was murdered. He'd even gone so far as to physically fight Fenris after their disastrous first night together… he never told her what he'd done but she'd caught him nursing a few bruises and swollen knuckles less than a week after the elf had left her alone, shaking with the kind of heartbreak that could only be born from a hopeless, life-altering kind of love. When she noticed Fenris encumbered with similar injuries, she put two and two together but remained silent on the issue.

He'd tended to her broken heart the best way he knew how- letting her sleep, eat, and breathe her apprenticeship, allowing her to stay in the clinic from sunrise till deep into the night, challenging her to absorb waves of knowledge until her mind so was overfilled she had little chance to think on anything else. Anders had always been careful with her, vigilantly keeping their mutual affection platonic, carefully tending to her psyche when she was overwhelmed. It wasn't until weeks after she'd… when she'd finally screwed up her courage enough to read his journals that she understood how deeply he'd cared for her… cared so much that he'd done everything in his power to conceal it, to protect her from the thing he knew he was becoming, lest the little girl tempt the monsters beneath her bed to manifest themselves into full-blown terrors.

"Remember when we accidentally gave Merrill the clap?" he'd whispered into her hair then. His lips quirked against her neck and she knew he'd smiled… Maker, it felt like it had been weeks since he'd done that.

She'd started laughing then or at the very least gave some weird combination of sobbing and giggles. They sourced some of the, errr, rarer ingredients for some potions from the ladies at the Blooming Rose… one bad ingredient later and a sort of epidemic of venereal disease exploded amongst their patients. She'd rather enjoyed watching Seneshal Bran's squirming when he came to the clinic. It wasn't until Merrill complained that they'd realized their folly. The faulty batch had been destroyed, burned on the Wounded Coast safely away from the populace. They'd laughed… laughed so hard at the simple, stupid error… it felt like a hundred years ago… a thousand years… a million years.

"Remember when I nearly exploded your clinic?" she'd snuffled into his shirt. "There was fire everywhere."

"I do," he'd murmured and flexed his strong arms around her. "I remember everything you've done."

And then her anger and anguish finally turned to confusion. "Then why?" she'd sobbed as she gripped him tighter in an embrace that had already failed. If he'd asked to be saved, she'd have done it in a heartbeat. But he'd never asked and now the scene was over; the draft was sent to the publishers and was just awaiting the printing. "Why did you do this? How could you do this to me?"

"I did it _for_ you, Marian, for all of us. At least, I thought I did," he'd conceded at last. "I'm sorry, love. I'm so sorry."

She gripped the knife tighter in her palm, clenching her fist over it like a beating heart that needed to be crushed. She'd pressed her lips against Anders' neck and held the blade tighter, tighter… tighter… tighter. Then he'd seized against her, drew his face away to stare into her eyes, warm blood leaking over her hand. "It's okay, Marian," he'd whispered as he stroked a hand over her face, brushing the wetness away from her cheek, "It's okay."

"It's not okay," she'd choked back. "Nothing is okay."

He hadn't reacted with shock… or with anything she'd have called confusion. He'd sunk to his knees, face resting against her belly as he began coughing his life's blood from his filling lungs onto her empty stomach. It was wet, warm as it penetrated the dark cloth and stained her skin. And she'd held him, cupping his head against her belly. Absently, she'd run her fingers through his hair, knocking his ponytail loose, and made soft, comforting noises as Anders instinctively clutched at her buttocks, looking for something to anchor him in this world, kneading them weakly as he began vomiting blood onto her stomach.

"Shhhhhhhh," she'd whispered, repeating it all back to him. "It's okay… It's okay, love."

"Hold me," he'd managed to choke out. "I don't want to be alone."

So she'd ducked into the dirt and embraced him, cooing and cuddling him long after he'd stopped twitching. She couldn't remember everything that happened next- her vision was bathed in hot tears. Anders, lax and inanimate, was clutched in her arms, she distantly heard a lioness' lowly yowl for the loss of her kin. There was no telling how long she'd held him suspended in infinite waiting, only knew that when the voice had startled her from the scene that Anders had long been gone, cold and dead in her clenched arms.

"Hawke?" Varric had asked as he approached the scene of slaughter. She heard his footsteps falter as he looked upon what she'd done. "Holy shit… Hawke…"

Then she'd begun wailing, unable to keep the howling quiet for a moment longer. First Fenris and now Anders… she was utterly alone. The details were long gone, lost in the inferno of grief. She remembered Varric brandishing a shovel but had no memory of where it had come from. The dwarf had pulled her away and she'd mindlessly clawed back at the man she'd… that she'd… she'd…

And then she was lowering him into the grave she didn't fully recall digging. She remembered Varric watching as she clawed at the hard earth with her fingers to make space for his shoulders. She remembered grabbing Anders' coin purse from his hip and emptying it into her outstretched hand… but all it held were a few runes and a locket. She remembered reaching for her own, pulling out a handful of coins. She remembered as she wrenched his stiffening jaw open and shoved a small fortune of gold inside his mouth and down his throat… because Father had told her it was tradition to bury the executed with money. It was said the coin allowed them a chance to bribe Death for an audience with the Maker to plead their case- even though the Chantry considered it blasphemy to be buried with it.

Maybe that had been an Imperial tradition, she realized now. Not that it mattered.

She'd regarded him one final time, his face peaceful and still with his mouth full of money. Then she dumped him into his grave face-down, so his dead eyes could gaze upon his soul in the Void. She'd never been particularly religious- being an apostate meant she couldn't attend services- but she understood the Chantry considered a face down burial to be the gravest insult. She'd snorted to herself through her tears as she began scooping dirt onto Anders' body… _gravest_.

At some point, it had begun raining. The water and mud soaking into her Champion's armor disguised the dark bloodstains over them. No one had questioned where Anders was when she returned to camp covered in muck, even though she felt the dirt from his shallow grave sticking beneath her fingernails. She'd almost hoped someone would ask, that she'd be forced to either lie or confess… but no one did. She said she'd let him go. It had been the biggest lie she'd told to date. She hadn't let him go- he was still there hanging in the air just over her shoulder, critiquing her potions and techniques, inserting his opinions and diagnoses as surely as he had before… Anders was irrevocably gone but, just like his husk of a corpse, still entirely here.

She'd missed Aveline the most then- the older woman understood what it meant to strike down a loved one. While she'd never begrudge the Guard-Captain staying her post in a ravaged Kirkwall, Marian had really needed her right then. Varric didn't understand. No one could understand. Only Aveline could have… and she'd left Marian sailing away on the docks of the Gallows… wishing Marian well… if only she'd known….

But no one should ever know. This was her burden. The world cared not for it and she cared less to share.

It was her intention that Anders' body wouldn't be found. She was determined that he be remembered as a coward, committing a single act of mass murder and then retreating into the shades never to return. He'd be a shadow in the night, a boogeyman to children, a threat and a warning about desperation and demons. While burying the man who had been her closest friend placed yet another heavy weight on her heart, leaving his body face-down in his grave was the only part of it she ever confronted herself with enough to regret- and it would not come onto her until much later when she let her anger pass and realized that Anders' first and final victim had been himself. He'd selected her as his executioner and she'd… she'd…

… and she'd killed him.

She'd killed him.

She'd killed Anders. She'd slain her teacher… a man who before that final day in Kirkwall she could count on to be her only ally in a sea of suddenly menacing faces.

She'd known it- known it the moment that she'd done it. She was no ignorant amnesiac. She remembered the flex of her hand, remembered the knife nicking Anders' ribcage as she forced the blade in, remembered his soft, almost relieved, gasp when it pierced his lung as he pulled her even closer. She had suffered the guilt ever since, had admitted it to the Imperial Divine himself…

… but some piece of her had kept her from fully admitting it to herself. Maybe that was why she'd never admitted it to Carver. Maybe that's why she hadn't been completely gob smacked when she met Fenris again. It never really felt like her hands had been the ones that slayed them. Some other Marian Hawke had done those things- some other woman who existed in some other time and place, immune to scrutiny, immune to the guilt that paralyzed her present counterpart. She'd conned herself into believing that she was not the same Marian Hawke who had committed such acts… but she was and she had.

She was the woman who'd blindly placed her trust in an abomination. She was the woman who'd had tears streaking down her chin as she struck down her furious lover before he could do the same. She was the woman who had murdered the author of this insane and beloved manifesto as he whispered her name like a blessing upon so much sin, telling her that it was okay, forgiving her for what she did.

She'd spent so much of the last year in frantic escape, fearing every second she rested, waiting for the inevitable moment her deeds would drag her down into Anders' empty grave. Now Marian was left dealing with a dead man who wouldn't die, who'd taken opportunity at her stalled tongue to murder even more. All she had to show for it was this book- the final document of a man possessed, refusing to relent or grace her with a modicum of peace even when its author had long since gone.

She hesitantly set the journal on the table next to the bomb. There was no sense in what he'd done, no justification for his actions that she could see. There were measures civilized society took to deal with injustice. Even if she'd seen them fail before, even if she'd actively defied authority when it didn't take… she's always believed they were there and held faith in them, horribly flawed, as she'd known them to be. A thousand years of mage oppression, men like Maison running about unchecked. There was little wonder why Anders had found her naivety frustrating but surely _this_ was not the answer, this could not be the future Anders had wanted.

She'd obsessed over the book, looking for answers that simply were not there. The man she'd loved so dearly was not housed within them and his dead tongue would offer her no answers. There was no telling when Anders began losing his fight to Justice, perhaps he'd lost the moment he harbored him, perhaps Anders had never taken a pen to these pages at all. Perhaps, as Fenris had once said so long ago, she'd never truly known him.

But she couldn't shake the feeling that she had… that she'd known some side of Anders that only she'd been privy to. It made this whole ordeal that much harder.

"I miss you," she spoke aloud to the book. It was a stupid thing to do, senseless as it was, but this had nothing to do with sense. This was grief, grief she'd never allowed herself to fully feel, never permitted herself to fully acknowledge. As she turned to walk away, she felt Hoppers ignite his warmth over her chest. He told her that this was the right thing to do- that she couldn't bring herself to fight whatever had become of Anders if she was still carrying this torch for a man long dead.

The realization sent her straight to her knees, her stride interrupted by a sudden, heart-wrenching ache. She wouldn't look back. It was just a book. Anders was dead. She'd killed him. The sobbing that erupted from her chest wracked her body. She collapsed to her side, curling into a fetal position, and she let the tears come as they hadn't since the night she'd plunged the knife into him. The pain, long suppressed, washed over her like a tidal wave. She bit her knuckles in a frantic effort to keep the noise of her pained mewling at bay, bit until she tasted blood flooding her mouth.

She rose then, grabbing random objects only to fling them against the wall, uncaring of how valuable they may have been. She ignited a bookcase. She blew the windows out of the wall in a beautiful telekinetic wave. Only the slightest ounce of caution prevented the bomb from being disturbed. It made no sense. It wasn't supposed to make sense. It could not possibly make sense. The world was tilted on its side, the universe slanted into a terrible macabre tableau, sight and sound was inverted and manifesting into a terrible screaming sound into the indifferent quiet. There was no fighting it, no silencing it- it was simply there, repulsive and hurting and pounding and screeching.

Hoppers blazed his heat against her chest but no demons made a move against her mind… this was born of a heart-crushing love- those monsters had no place in it. She threw more objects, uncaring of how or where they landed. Anything to ease this horrible ache. She hurled some delicate glass bauble against another window, amplifying its shattering a thousand-fold.

She couldn't stop it- she was almost a third party, listening to the agonized wailing from some place beyond herself. Dimly, she realized one of her hands was leaking blood, cut from something sharp that she clutched painfully in her tight fist. Focusing her will, she forced her fingers apart and let the bloody shards of glass fall from them, tinkling to the floor with a soft, sad sound. Her throat fell still, stalled from her screaming. Her blood made a soft patting noise as it dripped from her fingers onto the ground, easing over and off her fingertips as easily as rainwater. She didn't recall whatever it was that she'd been gripping to cause such an injury. A beaker, perhaps? Whatever it had been, there were still pieces of it imbedded in her flesh.

Then the fury died down and Hoppers lay cool against her chest. Only then did she wonder how long she'd been there, hurling trifles and trinkets against the walls. The moon seemed higher, more beautiful, she noted as she gazed out the broken window. There was a quietness filling the air with a soft volume that only came at midnight. Breaking beautiful things only assuaged her confusion for a brief while, she knew. The catharsis fixed nothing, just offered a few moments of blessed relief. But looking down at her bloody hand, she finally realized something that could.

The wound on her heart, like the oozing wounds on her hand, couldn't heal until she brought herself to pull out the shards that set them to bleeding so furiously. Shards of glass were difficult enough to remove… but how should one endeavor to remove an entire person, an entire history, she wondered as she gingerly plucked the glass from her fingers and healed the cuts closed with a quiet, whispered spell.

"I'll pray for you," she promised the book, daring to gaze back to that last vestige of her mentor. "I'll pray the Maker won't forsake you for what you've done."

And she summoned every ounce of her courage, set the bomb ablaze, and went to leave the room, pausing at the door for a long moment. He was gone forever. He'd made his bed, buried beneath a scant six feet of dirt, and now it was up to her to make him lie in it for good.

She had to let him go.

It was the only way to move forward… and she couldn't afford to dwell on the past anymore. Steeling herself she opened the door and strode through it and past her concerned onlookers, not looking back at where Anders' journal still sat open on the table.

* * *

Numb.

That was the word for how she felt as they awaited the sky to ignite in furious brimstone. She'd simply gone through too much today, so her greater mind had shut down in a manner of speaking, letting her ride absently alongside her body as it went through the motions. No one had said anything to her regarding her outburst- even though they'd all undeniably heard it. They'd all decided to remain blissfully silent on the matter. She was grateful no one attempted to question her- although Varric stayed closer than he usually did, pressing his warm palm against her back as he guided her away from the building.

When the inevitable fireworks were due to go off, she slunk away and sank against a tree, facing her body away from the fort. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back toward the sky. She hadn't been this tired since the night she'd taken Owen.

It was Merrill who approached her then, gently inquiring, "Are you going to watch?"

Hawke shook her head and answered only, "No. I saw it once."

"I'll sit with you then," the elf replied and seated herself beside the apostate, "I think once is enough." Minutes later when the detonation sounded, their hands found each other, squeezing tightly. Marian felt tears prick at her eyes and then spill over, a cup overfilled, a sinner's mouth flooded with coin.

Hawke said nothing else, just let the tears fall quietly. At some point, Merrill curled up beside her, wrapping an arm around the apostate's waist and tucking her head beneath the human's chin, letting the tears that failed to drip across her forehead seep into her hair. Marian brought a hand up to absently stroke Merrill's cheek with her palm. For the countless dangers out there now, they were safe for the moment. She felt the rip in the Fade dissipate with the boom of the explosion. Tobias had been right. The rift had been corrected with this singular, heinous act.

"Your nails look awful," Merrill commented sadly, doubtless feeling the ragged edges scratching against her skin.

"Been biting them," Hawke answered dumbly, accepting Merrill's observation without feeling particularly compelled to justify it. "It's been a rough week."

"I know, falon," the elf whispered. Falon- that meant friend, if Marian recalled correctly. "It's been a rough year."

Marian let her head sink further against Merrill, nuzzling the former blood-mage and just taking in the comfort the elf was giving. "It has," she agreed.

"I found a new nail lacquer I think you'll like," the elf continued softly. "It's this dark red you but when the light catches it, it looks almost like copper. I bought it off one of the Dalish vendors a few months back. We'll get your hands fixed up once everything calms down a bit."

"I'd like that," Hawke replied. It was a small offering but one that would give Hawke at least a fleeting moment of normalcy.

Merrill said nothing further, just curled herself closer against Hawke's body as they listened to the fort crumbling to pieces behind them. Her heart ached, her head felt muzzy from the residual headache, her eyes reached for more tears, her mind begged her for sleep, her very soul screamed, loudly and fiercely, at the injustice of all that had happened here tonight… but the deed was done. The damage was done. Another hole had been blown into the world… only this time, she couldn't feign ignorance for it or deny her responsibility for the corpses inside.

Carver eventually came to duck before her, looking at her with a gravity she'd only recently come to expect from him. "We need to get back to the camp," he prompted carefully. It was neither gentle nor stern… just a reminder that the universe wasn't centered on this one destroyed fort. There was a whole world of other, unspeakable dangers lurking in the shadows and this despicable act hadn't shattered the planet itself.

She pulled away from Merrill and rose to her feet. She wiped her tears onto her sleeve and cocked her head up to regard her brother. The time for weakness had passed. She shuttered her emotions safely away, they could continue pestering her another day, and gave her brother a quick nod to assure him that she was fully prepared to fulfill her duty to the rebellion.

After a bracing breath, she straightened her spine to give her every inch of her height. Carver's eyes warmed a bit as he witnessed her casting off her demons. "I already told them to move," she informed him with a cool professionalism. "We'll hit the river and go west until one of the lookouts spots us."

Carver looked at her, still slightly unsure as he assessed her face and quietly inquired, "Are you okay?"

She thought on it. The lie would be easy enough to deliver but she owed her brother so much more than that, especially after being thoroughly caught in a pretty spectacular one. "No," she decided after several seconds before assuring him, "but I will be."

He nodded his approval before he turned back to the rest of the party and instructed them to start making a path for the river. Their progress that evening was a slow one. Between the darkness and her exhaustion, they barely covered a mile before stopping for sleep. It wasn't until Marian bedded down for the evening that she realized her brother's motivations for their immediate trekking back to the camp. He'd been trying to protect her, shielding her from having to sit and look at the destruction Anders' device had wrought, from having to face down another exploded building.

With that knowledge solidly in her mind, Marian slept better than she had in months.

* * *

It was the third night when a nightmare drew her once more from her sleep. Not Anders this time but Fenris. A quick inspection of the camp told her that she hadn't shouted, hadn't waked the others. If she had managed to rouse them, they were at least feigning slumber. She sighed, sitting up to wipe a tired hand over her face. It was a full moon and it left the clearing eerily bright. Deciding another solid night's sleep would continue to elude her, she shuffled to her pack, drew out a deck of cards, and slunk away.

She found a new clearing about a hundred feet away and plopped down onto her bottom, pulling out the cards. This had been Aurelius' final gift to her, they'd belonged to her paternal grandmother and Malcolm… Marcus… had entrusted them to the man he'd considered a dear friend rather than keep that reminder of his past life. She suspected that if she pressed Tobias for answers regarding her father's exile from the Imperium she may actually get them; but Aurelius' words had struck a painful chord with her. She would endeavor to remember her father as the man she'd known him to be- not the man who'd cast blood magic to imprison a demented dead magister and not the priest who'd done something so terrible he'd had no choice but to flee his homeland forever.

That drew her back to these cards. The light of the moon wasn't enough to allow her to read them clearly, so she cast a magelight and shuffled the deck. She drew the first- the Archer- then the next- the Chapel- and the final- the King of Staves. She sat back and considered them. She didn't pretend to know much about card reading other than the bare minimum. According to both Father and Anders, it was generally expected that every mage would try their hand at fortune-telling at some point in their lives. Diving the chaos of the universe into something foreseeable was a talent most mages wanted to master. She'd had no luck with any of it in the past. Tea leaves almost always implied some sort of death, palm-reading usually told her that everyone was going to live to a ripe old age, and cards generally produced little more than gobbledygook.

Father had fervently encouraged her exploration into these talents. It wasn't until Aurelius informed her that her grandmother was unusually deft with her cards that Marian realized why. Her grandmother, Leila Demitrius, had been considered something of a prodigy. Her enrollment in the Imperial Chantry meant she seldom utilized her gifts but Aurelius implied that she'd foreseen her only child's actions, done everything in her power to prevent it, and died, babbling and insane, when unwavering Fate manifested itself and her son's unforgivable sin and inevitable exile came about.

She tried to think back on everything she'd ever learned about the cards but found her limited and abandoned experience rendered her unable to understand the elemental aspects of the card. So she reasoned with her mind instead. The Archer was a warrior, skilled and deft, striking with an inherent precision. The weight of his arrows was light. The Archer was unencumbered, free to strike as he pleased. However, every card had a negative aspect as well, so she considered them carefully. The Archer was also sentenced to the shadows, striking unexpectedly- an unforeseen wound to the back. It was also one of the few named cards, unassociated with any of the elements that conducted the others, which meant it acted of its own accord; it was a wildcard, so to speak, and couldn't be expected to act in accordance with the typical aspects of the elements. There was a something dark in that.

The Chapel indicated just the opposite of the Archer's caprice. It was heavy responsibility, solemn and constant. It was faith, resolute and stubborn, as faith often was. Faith was a weighty concept and she reasoned it meant something was unshakable, pure and true as she new it to be. It also meant judgment, prejudice, and unreasonable principle. The Chapel could mean a thousand things but faith… faith was something entirely different. Faith was a drive that could power one through unspeakable hardships. It was also completely irrational, an immovable object struggling against an unstoppable force for no purpose other than the very nature of its existence.

Then the King of Staves… Staves were a fire element if memory served her right. That meant thirst, conviction, and also lust and an indisputable callousness. Fire was governed by passion but Kings were also leaders- so there was a fiery principle at play in this hand. The King of Staves was a man who acted on his beliefs and used them to shape the world around him… but passion could also be ill-conceived and result in worlds of regret.

So what could it mean? She pondered these cards, drawn at random without any of the pomp and circumstance she only vaguely remembered. She'd diddled with them a bit during her trek back into the Free Marches, never finding anything resembling a proper answer, but they made her think. It felt like she'd been doing a lot of that lately. Returning to logic was a blessed release.

Suddenly, she heard a rustling in the bushes behind her. She looked back and saw Sebastian emerge from the woods. He gave her swift look before taking a seat beside her. Dumbly, she looked at the cards again. Okay, that was weird. That was really weird.

She wondered for a moment if the cards were enchanted somehow but then immediately dismissed it. Divinity spoke most loudly to an impressionable mind. Sleep-deprived and morally wounded, she felt she definitely fell into that category.

She gathered up her cards, packing them carefully back into the deck and tucked it neatly into her breast band. Then she waited for the prince to say something. He didn't, just took up a seat beside her and sat in silence as she considered him. The King, the Chapel, the Archer… it felt to be so undeniably him… but she'd never had a talent for fortune-telling. So she waited for him to say something, anything. Sebastian, however, appeared content with the stillness and said nothing instead. He just looked at her, waiting for her to speak.

Finally too irritated at his continued quiet, she turn and snapped, "Are you going to say anything or are you just going to sit there and stare?"

He turned his head, raised an eyebrow, and replied simply, "Vow of Silence."

She felt a growl attempting to emerge from her chest and retorted, "Perhaps I should have aimed higher and gone for a Vow of Invisibility as well." It did tickle her a little to realize rather belatedly that Sebastian had not said a single word within her earshot ever since she'd said that. A small smile graced her face at that.

Sebastian bowed his head, clasping his hands before him in a mockery of prayer, and uttered, "Hawke… I'm sorry."

Those words set her mind tumbling. Sorry? Like that was supposed to fix everything? "Is that all you came out here to say," she spat, not even attempting to hide the bitterness from her voice.

"No," he replied softly, "but I couldn't hope to say anything else until I told you that. I let my anger get the better of me. I allowed rage to cripple me. I permitted it to turn me against someone I considered the dearest of friends. For that, I am truly sorry."

She shook her head and retorted, "Would you be saying that if your precious Starkhaven weren't at risk? Would you even be talking to me if I hadn't killed him?"

Sebastian sat back, thinking on her words before he answered, "I do not know. I would like to believe I would."

"But you don't know," she replied angrily. "You don't know for certain."

"No," he admitted with a whimsy sort of sadness. "I truly don't."

It wasn't much. It was hardly a comfort… but brutal honestly seldom was. After everything that had happened, a stupidly selfish part of her wished Sebastian would make a token effort to insulate her, to placate her. But a broken fantasy was just that- broken- and a house of cards built upon a foundation of lies held an even smaller chance at longevity.

It hadn't always been like this. She'd considered Sebastian amongst her most beloved of friends. He escorted her to countless galas thrown in her honor and proved himself to be jolly good company. They'd made fun of the nobility with rampant gusto, his station preventing potential suitors from making advances while she impatiently waited for Fenris to come around. Sebastian had single-handedly meted out her inoculation into Kirkwall nobility with a grace she never expected from him. He'd even begun campaigning for her to take the title of Viscount before that final day she'd spent in Kirkwall. Even though she was a mage, he'd believed she could lead the city into a new era of leadership.

And in one single day, all that faith simply vanished- smoke in the wind, tears in the sea. He'd condemned her, persecuted her, screeched petulantly for her very death. Those things were not easily forgotten, especially when she recalled Owen's cut ear… the boy hadn't even been the target. He'd simply been collateral damage to the mercenaries the prince had set upon her.

She thought on those things as stared at the dirt where the cards had just been. Then she finally asked, "Do you believe in me?"

"I do, Hawke," he immediately answered. Whether it was false or truth, she wouldn't rightly know until the hand played out. If his candor was any indicator, she was inclined to trust him. Then, completely out of the blue, he said, "Fenris is still in love with you."

She chuckled, wrapping her arms around her midsection. "You didn't see the fighting we did when we last met," she reminded him.

"No," he replied, "but I saw the aftermath. He didn't tell me everything that happened but it was easy enough to guess. Your brother also figured it out on his own- gave Fenris quite the black eye for it. He never offered it, Hawke. It was obvious."

Fenris had always been a terrible bluff. It was slightly reassuring to know that hadn't changed. "He hates what I am," she murmured and propped her head back to look at the moon, white and silvery like the subject of this discussion. "He's got every reason to. Even if he…" she snorted, unwilling to say that particular word aloud. "How could that ever be enough?"

Sebastian reached out and took her hand, holding it gently. Even though impulse screamed that she should yank her hand back, she left it there. "Love is enough," Sebastian assured her and stroked his thumb across her tense palm. "He wouldn't be here if it weren't. He wouldn't be here if he didn't believe in you, too."

She rose then, uncomfortable thoughts racing through her head as Sebastian's words sank in. She hadn't given herself much of an opportunity to think about Fenris' presence and everything that could mean. The elf had made no attempt to approach her and though she knew a reckoning was imminent, she wasn't sure what, if any, resolution it would bring. "I think I'll go back to bed," she murmured absently over her shoulder as she turned to head back to her bedroll.

"Go ahead," the prince said, leaning back upon his hands and letting her leave. "I'll stay out here a bit longer."

She nodded at him then, feeling just a hint of the easiness they'd had before, and continued back toward the campsite. Even if anxiety kept her awake, she'd pretend to sleep- if only to avoid the incredibly awkward situation Sebastian had put her in.

Fenris apparently still carried a torch for her. For every despicable thing they'd done to one another, that bond had never fully been broken. Part of her suspected that it would never truly break. She realized as she settled once more into her bedroll that Fenris was not actually asleep. He tended to make a deep breathing sound when he slumbered, not precisely snoring but something just this side of it. His eyes were closed, feigning slumber, avoiding her, giving her space.

Her heart banged, unwelcome against her ribcage. There was no hope to be had between them. This love was a weight shackled around both their necks. Even if it hurt, hurt like the burning fires of the Void itself, she had to keep her head on straight for once. But her heart thumped… thumped for him, thumped as she looked upon his pretend sleep, thumped as she did every time she thought of him.

It was the same earth-shattering love it had always been- something that could stand as the rest of the world disintegrated to pieces around them until only it remained. She couldn't afford to let the Thedas crumble further around her. She wasn't just the Champion anymore. She was a leader of Anders' rebellion. She was sought out for destruction, marked for death and things much, much worse. She was a fire in the night of these wretched circumstances- a beacon, a symbol. She was a warrior, a fighter, an unforgivable apostate, a guardian to a frightened elven boy, a victim of a heinous act she didn't quite understand… definitely damaged, very possibly crazy…

… and it all petrified her. Life hadn't necessarily been simple before Anders had detonated the bomb in the Chantry but it had felt much more stable. Maybe she hadn't always been right but she'd never before had reason to question her motivations. She'd always endeavored to do good… now she kept secrets, withheld valuable information just to keep the soul-crushing of guilt at bay, called her own sanity into question every time she heard a button speak softly against her troubled mind.

She wasn't cut out to be the recipient of this sort of love. Perhaps she'd never been. Perhaps Fenris had intuited something within her that one night so many years ago. Perhaps it hadn't been a lapse in his fugue-state but just an unconscious understanding that they were utterly terrible for one another.

She watched Fenris play at his sleep, knowing irrefutably that he was watching her with both eyes closed. It was wrong that he was encumbered with it as much as it was wrong that she still felt it. But she kept coming around to the same question she'd asked herself at the fort. How did you erase a person, an entire history?

She didn't know.

She'd play it safe, keep him at arms' length until this sick feeling abated. He was an ally now, that much Carver certainly believed, so she'd keep him on for the time being. Maybe in time these feelings would pass. Maybe their hearts could heal with some distance. Maybe eventually, they could go back to being just colleagues.

But what of Owen? She'd vetted every rational defense she could for avoiding passing the boy onto Fenris. Starkhaven was dangerous, run by a hateful prince who wanted nothing other than her destruction. That reason had just proved false, otherwise Sebastian would have fired that arrow at her head the moment he'd regained his footing or at the very least done it when he'd discovered her alone and vulnerable. Fenris hated her… but she remembered the delicately forceful way he'd removed her from her brother. That hadn't been an act of aggression- it had been oddly tender as he was so inclined to be when it came to her. Sebastian's words had only doubled the elf's impact.

She missed Anders then. He'd always been rather deft at distractions. He was gone now, faded into something she couldn't hope to understand but, Maker, she still hoped he'd moved on to something sweeter than this sickening acid candy she found herself childishly suckling.

She needed Owen- she could admit it now… a new secret she'd have to selfishly harbor. He helped keep the mindless rage at bay. Owen saved her as surely as she'd saved him- his demand for her helped keep her mind steady. If she was tasked to guard him, nurture him, care for him, then the darker things that clawed at her couldn't grasp at her so tightly. With her mind in such indisputable disarray, any sort of grounding force was necessary. That force happened to be a child-slave she'd promised to protect. It was Owen.

She wasn't the boy's mother… but he needed her. She needed to be needed in the way only the boy could hope to do. What if she told Fenris and he took the boy, took that small light away forever? She couldn't give him up just yet. A mild sickness came over her as she contemplated keeping this piece of information from Fenris. She wanted to retreat into the woods and vomit, wanted to rouse Fenris and confess his sister's murder… but not more than she wanted to keep the boy with her just a little longer.

Just a little longer, she promised herself. She'd keep the secret of Owen to herself just a little longer.

* * *

Seven days later, the lookout spotted them. It had long been approaching dusk when she'd noticed the single blue arrow protruding from the ground and sent up the blue flare to indicate their status as friendly.

Four refugees materialized out of the wood, they looked tired, hungry. Her heart ached as she looked upon them. Most of the Circle mages had little to no skills in terms of basic survival. They couldn't hunt, couldn't fend for themselves, couldn't even sew a simple button onto the face of a tattered, stuffed rabbit. Anders would have killed these people if she hadn't risked the chance to take them in. The defected Templars attempted to teach them most of their skills but it was still a lacking endeavor. How should you teach a life-long scholar to take up a bow and hunt?

Now a viper rested amidst them- eating their food, wearing their clothes, sharing in their stories and secrets.

There was no telling where the traitor laid dormant. Every face was now carefully catalogued; every pledged ally was called into question. Still, she couldn't deny her inevitable conclusion any more than her brother had refused to voice it. The mole was no Templar…. The traitor had to be a mage. It was the only explanation for the interference in the mail but it was also something that couldn't be openly spoken. Only mages had any hope of understanding the delicate communication… and they were beyond spooked to begin with. To actively investigate them was tantamount to driving a wedge between the mages and their keepers. This had to be quiet, utterly silent to the populace.

Soft inquiries were made of the Templars she and her brother both considered wholly-trusted, Margot, Hastings, and Nedrine, outstretched with the demand for discretion. If anything, Hawke was confident that those individuals were unshakable in their loyalties. Both she and Carver had long discussions with all of them and deemed them safe.

They all swore to keep a vigilant eye. Then she'd asked where Owen was sleeping and slunk off to meet him there in the tent he'd occupied. The boy's eyes had blearily cracked open as she shucked off her clothing and changed into a pale white shift. Typically she was loath to undress around the boy- the propriety of their relationship was already something she questioned deeply- but she figured tonight could be one of those compromises. Without another word, she lowered herself to the bedroll beside him. The boy curled against her, nuzzling her breast as he fell back off to into sleep again, where she quickly followed.

She didn't sleep long. She woke unexpectedly, cold, shivering even… her body wasn't prepared for the abrupt ejection from the Fade. She sat up, shuddering from the unexpected ice. It had been temperate when she'd gone to sleep, chilly perhaps but nothing like this. She was positively freezing. Looking over at the elf beside her, sleeping peacefully against her, she wondered what had caused her to awaken.

She crawled away from Owen, disentangling herself from the boy before her movements could wake him, rising to her feet just outside their tent. She didn't bother pulling on a robe to cover herself, standing outside with just the overlarge tunic covering her to just above the knees. The camp was quiet, the fire burning lowly at the heart of the site. Two of their Templars moved along the edge of the camp, patrolling for danger. It was quiet. Everything seemed normal enough. So why did she feel so cold?

The answer manifested when she recognized heaviness of the air as it abruptly took on a sharper, malignant aura… not cold. Silence. She barely managed to shriek out a warning when a cloth sack was dragged over her face, a drawstring tied tightly around her neck. She heard chaos erupt around her, saw flashes of light and heard blades clanging against metal. She felt her body being dragged across the ground, her bare feet futilely gripping against the rocks and dirt as she violently struggled to get away.

A sharp pain exploded over her side and her mana, already inhibited from the lingering Silence, ebbed from her completely. Poisoned. Of course it was. Her fists flailed, desperately striking against the air as she felt her body being hauled farther and farther away from the camp. She felt her feet become wet as they passed over some body of water. She had no idea how much time had passed when, finally, her fist landed against a blunt object just behind her back, a handle blessedly solid against her palm. She gripped it furiously, praying to every deity she'd ever named and forgotten, and swung her hand wildly into the air once before aiming her hand slightly to the side of her neck.

She felt the weapon connect with some soft being, and her progress away from the camp was temporarily impeded as she was dropped to the ground. She swung forward, feeling the heavy object in her grip collide with something else. Frantically, she reached out with her other hand and felt the object in her hand to be sharp, a heavy orb of sharp metal. Gripping the drawstring around her neck, she carelessly cut through it, nicking herself in several places as she struggled.

After painstaking seconds, the mask was gone and her eyes, already adjusted to the dark, could finally survey the scene. The weapon in her hand was some manner of mace. She'd never had cause to carry one before thus was shocked at how utterly heavy it was to wield. How had Aveline managed to carry this thing? A Templar lay wheezing on the ground, his throat inexpertly punctured slightly left of his windpipe. Another stared at her with a similarly bloody bicep… that simply would not do.

She gripped the mace in both hands and swung out again, lunging out to catch the second Templar this time directly into his face before he could draw his blade. He choked for a moment, his last words little more than stifled obscenities as blood exploded out of him, soaking her in dark, rich fluid. With some difficulty, the mace was pried from the dead face courtesy of her foot braced against his neck. Bits of bone and brain clung to the spikes. She turned to survey her first attacker- his wounds were not survivable- death would be a mercy he may not rightly deserve. While she hadn't been dragged into these woods to mete out any kind of justice, she couldn't risk him summoning help. He was on his back, strangling out a few nonsense syllables as he tried to duck away from her.

She knelt, straddling him, whispering only, "Shhhhhh… it's okay. It's alright," before she brought the mace above her head, let loose a cry, and slammed the end of the weapon into his eye-socket, ending him for good. When he looked up at her with that one, terrified eye, blood gurgling from the wound on his neck, she thought she detected a smidgen of relief. Maybe that was wistful thinking- she didn't rightly know.

Staggering on her feet, she realized her surroundings were unrecognizable. Everything was all woods and night. The blade that had pierced her side had fortunately missed any major organs- apparently its intent had been to administer the poison and nothing more. Noting the drag-marks that undeniably came from her feet flailing against the ground, she followed them backwards, praying they'd lead her back to the camp. They couldn't have moved her too far, struggling as she'd been. She staggered drunkenly, blindly, unwilling to cast a magelight to assist her. There could be others looming in the shadows to drag her back into the night. Revealing her location was not an option at present- not that she was sure she even had the strength to cast it.

Her mind was hazy, she realized far too late, when the footprints disappeared into a creek she didn't quite remember. The poison left her unbelievably dizzy. There was a river near the camp but she recalled no creeks. Having no other direction to aim herself, she followed against the stream. She'd been dragged down so uphill seemed a perfectly reasonable direction to target. Her foot caught some manner of root and sent her sprawling into a nest of brambles, scratching and tearing at her as she fought to right herself. Once she'd taken to stumbling, her body became all the more inclined to do it, hurling her to crawl on her hands and knees over stones and dirt at the slightest bump along the path. It was all she could do to avoid sprawling on top of the weapon clutched in her hand.

She could barely stand by the time she saw lights in the distance, had no idea where she was or how far she'd traveled or if they came from her allies or her enemies. After several minutes, she heard a man calling out, heard several voices screaming their confusion into the darkness.

"Everybody calm down," the voice ordered over the din. "It's over! If you're injured, get yourself to Hawke or Elon. Everyone else, get to the fire for roll call."

Against the unrelenting dizziness and discomfort, she forced herself on, pursuing the sounds of chaos where she was increasingly certain the attack had originated. Dimly she felt the pain start to ebb away. Logically, she understood this to be the onset of shock. That meant she couldn't count on staying awake for much longer. She pushed past the darkness that hovered at the corners of her eyes until she finally caught sight of a campfire through the trees, saw the shadows frantically dancing around it. She heard rustling in the bushes and managed to turn in time to see a Templar emerge from them with a weapon drawn.

The Silence was over but with the poison in her veins, she only had one shot she could take to end this. Dropping the mace, she managed to conjure a single flame in her hand before a startled voice extinguished it, "Hawke? Maker, is that you?"

She recognized the voice and answered only, "Margot?" before the other woman rushed forward, placing her shoulder beneath the apostate's arm and hoisting her weight against her armor. She assisted Hawke as they staggered closer to the camp, Margot only opening her mouth to bark out, "I've got injured! Where's Elon?"

"No healer," Hawke stuttered, shuddering from a cold that had nothing to do with Silence or weather.

"You've been stabbed," Margot hissed angrily, her tone brokering no room for armument. "I'm getting you a healer."

"I am a healer," Hawke argued regardless. "How many are injured?" Elon was the only other healer residing in the and he'd be overwhelmed if too many people had been hurt. When Margot didn't answer, Hawke shook her head and assured her, "The worst is the magebane. I've got an antidote in my pack. Get me that and I can take care of myself. Let Elon focus on the people who need him."

Margot cursed as she continued to half-help, half-drag Hawke back to the camp and depositing the mage neatly in front of the campfire before retreating to fetch the antidote. People stopped to openly goggle at her. She must have been a sight to behold. The light of the fire allowed her to see the dozens of bleeding cuts gracing her bare arms and legs. Her shirt was more red than white now. Absently she pulled the torn, oversized tunic down to cover as much of her legs as possible. She felt a particularly nasty wound on her neck seep blood down into the collar, although that injury had in all likelihood been her own doing when she'd cut the bag free.

"Marian, we need you to…" she heard Carver's voice trail off as she turned to see him staring at her with unbridled horror. "What happened?"

"Don't look at me like that," she snapped in spite of her chattering teeth. Everything was cold. Shock. Fantastic. "I gave it better than I got. Besides, you should see the other guys… very dead," she finished with a drunken giggle.

Carver detected the slight slur in her words. "You've been poisoned," he observed before turning back to the others and shouting, "Stop your fucking gawking and bring me a blanket!"

Margot chose that moment to return with both the antidote and, already foreseeing the need, a blanket as well, which she tucked over the shivering mage's shoulder. Hawke unstopped the vial and lifted the side of her tunic, completely uncaring that she was flashing her underclothes to most of the camp. With a grit of her teeth, she poured a fraction of the fluid over the knife-wound to negate any of the toxin that lingered near the surface. A low whimper escaped when she felt the mixture burn and fizzle over the open wound, reacting to the poison. When that passed, she pounded the rest of it in two heavy gulps.

Instantly, she felt her mind start to right itself, the dizziness ebbing away slowly as the potion worked its magic through her system. Maker, she really hated magebane. It was like Silence and dwarven ale mixed into one debilitating concoction. The burning of the antidote was almost worse… almost.

Carver crouched before her and repeated, "What happened?"

She groaned, answering, with a gesture at her person, "Trust me, most of this is the result of running half-naked through the woods at night. That and, well, smacking two Templars in the face with a mace." She chuckled a bit and added, "Those things are _heavy_."

Carver ignored her quip, lifting the side of her tunic to press a cloth against the puncture in her side. "You went after them?" When she shook her head, she heard him grumble, "So the attack was a distraction."

"I was just coming to that conclusion as well," she admitted as fury rushed up at her, lending her its strength as she quickly healed the worst of her injuries. The knife wound couldn't be fully healed until the potion took its full effect but for now the blood oozed sluggishly from it, hindered by the beginnings of recovery.

"They waited until you were back. They went straight for you- we didn't even know you were gone," Carver muttered and gave a quick look at the refugees before whispering, "We've got to find the traitor."

She'd been the intended target of this raid- that much was obvious enough. "We probably know who it is," she thought aloud.

"You do? Who?"

She stared at her hands for a moment, still covered in the remnants of her injuries. "I don't know, she replied, "but we just got back. If this attack is as haphazard as it seems, then it stands to reason that our arrival stood to throw a wrench into a greater plan."

"That… makes sense," Carver admitted before asking Margot, "Have we had any new arrivals?"

"No," the older woman replied. "We've been too refocused on moving the camp to even look for new recruits. Everyone here was already on the rosters before we left the old campsite."

"Then it's you," Carver muttered to his sister. "You've got to know who this person is. The rest of us have spent a fair amount of time here."

She opened her mouth to remind the two of them that Fenris and Sebastian were still wildcards in their midst but closed it again before the words could come out. Logically, she had to discard that as a possibility. If Fenris or Sebastian had wanted to take her out, they'd had ample opportunity to attempt to do so already; and, if she was completely honest with herself, she had to admit an attack with Starkhaven's backing would have been far more devastating. Furthermore, Carver's rendition of Fenris' involvement in releasing the prisoners from the dungeon at Fort Fitz effectively moved him from her mental category of Completely-Untrusted to the Just-Slightly-Trusted one.

Almost like the universe was eavesdropping into her thoughts, she felt a heavy gaze on her. She turned her head slightly to observe Fenris staring at her. She could see the blood shining on his armor, reaching up the elbows in some places. He also had the grace to look extremely disoriented, bedraggled and tired as she, too, felt. The expression itself told her that Fenris had been as surprised to be roused from his sleep as she'd been. She couldn't even imagine what she must look like through his eyes right now. Bloody, tired, smudges of dirt everywhere, probably more than a few twigs and thorns sticking out of her hair… surely she was far from a Paragon of womanly wiles as humanly possible.

"He took out two of them. Sebastian got one," Carver informed her. "Doesn't strike me as an effective way to handle this attack if they were behind it."

"I'd already figured that," she answered. "We need to lock the camp down. Nobody comes or goes until we get this sorted out."

"The mages are going to suspect something if we don't at least pretend to move the camp," Margot reasoned. Hawke sighed, grateful for Margot's input. The woman was endlessly calculating and she made a good commanding officer precisely for shrewd insights like that.

"Then we throw it all out in the open," Hawke said, hating the rampant paranoia this course of action was guaranteed to bring. "The time for subtlety has passed- we've got to find the spy before they can guide any more Templars back into the camp."

The three of them were shocked out of their quiet conversation when she heard a small voice calling her name. She barely had time to register the small elf barreling toward her until he threw himself onto her, face worried and on the verge of panic. She shushed him, using her tone to assure him gently that everything was fine until he burrowed under the blanket with her, half-straddling her lap and hiding himself from the countless curious eyes that tracked his movements. For the most part, Owen didn't like being observed, sometimes not even by her. He'd known the dangers lurking around his former home and trained himself to be little more than a shadow whenever he was thrust into a situation that frightened him. That particular skill was doubtlessly the reason why the slavers hadn't found him when they came for Varania.

Carver gave the lump resting at her side an appraising look and ventured, "I'm guessing this isn't our mole."

She chuckled as she felt Owen remove his head from beneath her chin and stare defiantly out at Carver, narrowing his eyes slightly as he tried to figure out who this new person was before ducking back under the blanket again to rest his head on her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him gently, tucking the fabric over his head and absently running her thumb over the small, healed notch in his ear. "He is a bit of a burrower," she admitted, "but not a mole per se. I found him in Minrathous. I'll fill you in on all the bloody details after we've found our traitor."

"Marian," Carver started warily, "I don't know if a kid…"

"He was a slave," Hawke answered before Carver could say anything further. "I couldn't leave him there."

Carver released a low whistle before sending a quick glance back toward Fenris. "Well, you're nothing if not consistent."

She ignored the feeling of her former-lover's eyes boring holes through her, watching her curiously. It was ironic in a way- she'd left for Minrathous with the very realistic concern that she might be pregnant and even though she wasn't still somehow managed to return with a child regardless… and one that rightfully belonged to him. All her conviction from the other night flew the way of the wind. She couldn't keep this from him forever. She'd just… have to find the right time to tell him.

That was not a conversation she looked forward to. Fortunately, there were plenty of good reasons to postpone it. Even if withholding was going to make it worse, she just couldn't bring herself to have that discussion just yet.

"Our priority is finding the spy," she spoke, almost more to herself than to the present company, as she stroked a hand over Owen's tangled hair, uncaring that she was certainly smearing her blood over it. "Trust me," she promised her brother, "these men have not even begun to realize just who they're fucking with."


End file.
